David Lynch in Hell: Finding Resolution in Twin Peaks: The Return
Today, February 24, is Twin Peaks Day, the day Special Agent Dale Cooper came to the titular town to investigate the murder of Laura Palmer. Apropos that, we’re reposting Matthew[…]
Category: Essays
Animation · Counterculture · Cyberpunk · Digital · Essays · New Genres
A Brief History of Slip and Failure: Cyberpunk and the Headroom for Nostalgia in Back to the Future
In refusing to be neither something different nor more of the same, Back to the Future II’s re-filming technique within the original via new VistaGlide technology offered – rather –[…]
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Troubling Mastery: Scorsese’s and Kubrick’s Psychosexual New York Odysseys
About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters: how well they understood Its human position. – W. H. Auden, “Musée des Beaux-Arts” (1940) “It’s also a film I cherish[…]
Born on a Meat Hook: On André Øvredal’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)
“We grow up, but do we ever forget how afraid of ourselves we are?” * * * The books parents protest about are the best at converting children into bookworms.[…]
Drama · Essays · Urban Conflict
Fighting for a Place to Be: Urban Space in Tangerine and The Florida Project
This conditional access to space is also there in Tangerine, but it is never tested to the breaking point. The conflicts that occur between the characters and the managers of[…]
Essays · Thrillers & Action · Urban Conflict · Women in Film
Welcome to the Ranks of the Disenchanted: Feminism and Pacifist Spectacle in The Gauntlet
This essay is a revised version of a book chapter that originally appeared in the anthology Clint Eastwood’s Cinema of Trauma: Essays on PTSD in the Director’s Films, eds., Charles[…]
Animation · Essays · Women in Film
Girls Just Wanna Be Fish: The Little Mermaid and Curious Young Women
Author’s note: My primary works cited, in increasingly tangled order, are the 1989 Disney adaptation of The Little Mermaid; Hayao Miyazaki’s 2008 Studio Ghibli film Ponyo; and the ur-terror that[…]
Activist & Political · African American · Essays · Societal Trends
The Many Shades of Blackface
Anthony Hopkins’ rendition of Othello, recorded by the BBC in 1981, is exquisite, one of the finest examples of Shakespearean acting one can see on film. Today, it’s commonplace for[…]
Portrait without a Face: Faces and Facelessness in Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire
With Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma offers us an unexpectedly timely commentary on our present moment of social distancing, self-quarantines, and curfews. This film about cooped-up lovers,[…]
Celebrity Culture · Drama · Essays
Doubles, Anyone? Celebrity Stalking in Strangers on a Train and The King of Comedy
While Rupert isn’t interested in a crisscross murder, he certainly wants Jerry to spot him a segment on Jerry’s show. This is more than a favor..And he appears to go[…]
Activist & Political · Documentaries · Essays
Lost Dreams of Brazil: Petra Costa’s The Edge of Democracy (2019)
E em cada paso dessa linha / pode se machucar. Azar! / A esperança equilibrista / sabe que o show de todo artista tem que continuar. And on each step[…]
“You Have Only Half the Picture”: Syzygies in Æon Flux
“Revolutionaries need an oppressive establishment to thrive, just as governments need hidden enemies to justify stricture.” – Peter Chung, creator of Æon Flux * * * From 1991 to 1995,[…]
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Joker: Laughter Without an Echo Chamber
In Joker, we see a reversal of Tarantino’s aesthetic, where a patently comic character, a joker with a clown face, is, by degrees, rendered tragic, or as near tragic as[…]
Drama · Essays · Women in Film
The Love That Needs to Be, Needs to Be: David O. Selznick’s Portrait of Jennie
Show me one who loves; he knows what I mean. – St. Augustine * * * I’m sharing my favorite places with her outside my alma mater: bald, rolling fields[…]
Drama · Essays · Urban Conflict
Watching Taxi Driver with John Hinckley
Our nation has persisted in this state for so long that when we watch Taxi Driver, we always watch it with John Hinckley. It is a film that forces us[…]
To the Lighthouse: Cinematic Lighthouses in Shutter Island, Annihilation, and The Lighthouse
Through their own fragmentary narratives, which resemble Poe’s stream-of-consciousness diary, Shutter Island, Annihilation, and The Lighthouse mount challenges to our own perceptual abilities as viewers. They locate us in the[…]
A Human Noise: On Rebirth and Birdman (2014), Five Years After
“They had no song. Their calls were harsh and ugly. But their soaring was like an endless silent singing. What else had they to do? They were sea falcons now;[…]
Activist & Political · Essays · SF & Fantasy
Klaatu’s Police Action: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) Remembered
Suddenly, Gort doesn’t seem so powerful. We’re told of his strength and given a few meager examples. We have to take Klaatu’s word for it. The universe/world policeman is a[…]
Essays · Mystery · SF & Fantasy
Talkin’ ’bout My Gentrification: The Secret Life of The Kirlian Witness (1979)
“The city was dirty. And dirt is fertile.” – Jeremiah Moss * * * New York City ca. 1976 was dying on the vine. With over a million citizens on[…]
Activist & Political · Essays · Philosophy
Once Upon a Time – Shots in the Hyperreal (on Tarantino’s New Film)
“Hey, you’re Rick fucking Dalton. Don’t you forget it.” – Once Upon a Time – in Hollywood “And so art is everywhere, since artifice is at the very heart of reality.”[…]
