Christianity · Religion & Spirituality · Scandinavian Cinema
From the austere formalism of Carl Theodor Dreyer, which transforms cinematic language into a vessel for transcendent faith, to the existential torment of Ingmar Bergman’s “silence of God,” the iconoclastic[…]
Crime · Essays · Thrillers & Action
Commando Parker is the Jeanne D’Arc of a morally bankrupt, corrupt, violent, and racist Empire, and she’s gakked-to-the-gills high on the stupidest and shallowest form of identity politics, giddy with[…]
Drama · Essays · Surrealism
Lynch takes the glamorized version of youth (even some of the glamor from his very own ’90s series) often presented on-screen and renders it unrecognizable. Dramatized teenhood usually tries to[…]
Experimental & Underground · India · Production · Religion & Spirituality
People ask me why we chose a single take. Why not shoot normally and then edit nicely? But when a man is waiting for a sign from God, time itself[…]
Colonialism · Drama · Imperialism · Melodrama
Typically recognized for its portrayal of middle-class repression and female depression, the film is also an early eulogy to British empire. The doomed flirtation signals an end to Britain’s love[…]
Drama · Essays · Men & Masculinity · Nature
The myth of the Great White bears numerous meanings, of variable relevance, from the perspective of then and now. Either way, the old Ahab type is unable to triumph, but[…]
Class System · Drama · Hollywood · Melodrama
Before we were townies, we were snobs. * * * Before Hollywood regarded “Bostonian” as a synonym for “townie” – see Mystic River (2003), The Departed (2006), Gone Baby Gone[…]
Colonialism · Drama · Exile and Displacement
Spoiler Warning: This piece discusses all major events in the film. * * * Óliver Laxe’s Sirāt fuses the fear of losing oneself with the trembling topography of the desert;[…]
Animation · Drama · Myth and Archetype · War
We are, each of us, mearcstapas, navigating the borders between lands. Home, in Vinland Saga, extends beyond geopolitics and ancestry. Whenever geographical territories are breached, cultural and personal identities are[…]
Festivals & Awards · Film Culture · Film History · Programmers · Silents
The online program emphasizes this living quality of film history. Each restoration carries its own provenance, its own narrative of survival. * * * October finds audience viewing habits leaning[…]
Cult Cinema · Dreams · Experimental & Underground · Exploitation & Erotica · Gothic · Indies · Sex & Relationships
In Franco’s world, beauty existed only through risk. The rawness, the repetition, the obsessive zooms were not acts of carelessness but of liberation. They were his rebellion against the clean,[…]
Central and South America · Colonialism · Imperialism · Marxism · Politics · Satire
Alex Cox’s Walker (1987) is an instructive example of how to make a film about modern political issues without becoming overly burdened by the present moment. In telling the story[…]
Marxism · Philosophy · Politics · Sports · Theory
Bennett Miller’s 2008 film Moneyball depicts the unfolding on-screen of a contradiction. Moneyball as an idea is a theoretical understanding of how the game of baseball works (based on a[…]
Animation · Artificial Intelligence (AI) · Colonialism · Essays · Horror · SF & Fantasy
Ultimately, the comparison of human–ecology relationships in both The Martian and Scavengers Reign reveals two contrasting modes of becoming alien: The former envisions human survival as contingent on an anthropocentric[…]
Class System · Crime · Essays · Race
The ethical contrast between due process and vigilantism is not the deepest fault line between these movies. A sharper divide concerns who counts as fully human within the moral universe[…]
Directors · Film Culture · Film History · Film Studies · Memoir · Writers & Critics
Joseph McBride, filmed in 1970, is taking notes on his wrist, a habit he picked up while reviewing films, in his role as the critic and historian Mister Pister in[…]
Body Horror · Eco-horror · Essays · Horror · Myth and Archetype · Splatter & Gore
This article argues that the history of global horror is not a linear progression of influence from a dominant West to the passive rest of the world but a dynamic,[…]
Courtroom Drama · Drama · Exile and Displacement · Myth and Archetype
“They’re not monsters. They’re just tired.” – Ada, Atlantics (2019) “I placed her in the sea so that the sea. . . .” – Laurence, Saint Omer (2022) * *[…]
Depicted as perfect boyfriends, they model an ideal set of standards for a desirable heterosexual male romantic partner while using those standards not to pursue their own self-interests but rather[…]
