Designers · Drama · Interviews
Uncut Gems: Talking with Production Designer Sam Lisenco
We were really careful in coming up with the look of Howard’s world to make assumptions about how old he was when he would’ve formed his taste, and what that[…]
Category: Genres
Directors · Experimental & Underground · Interviews · LGBT & Queer
“How Stupid the Whole World Is!” An interview with Paul Morrissey
“There was no movement! I was not part of a movement, I. Made. My. Own. Films. They. Were. Not. Part. Of. Any. Movement. You’re incapable of understanding that, aren’t you? I have to be in a category. First I’m in ‘Andy Warhol films,’ then I’m an ‘independent.’ I like good films that are worth watching, OK?”
Costume Drama · Literature and Film · Women in Film
Greta Gerwig’s Little Women Is Great; It’s Just Not Little Women
Before seeing Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, I knew I’d be in for a more avant-garde adaptation – in interviews, Gerwig has talked openly about wanting to “strip away” the story’s[…]
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[…]
Comedy · Counterculture · Crime · Historical & Epic · Hollywood · Movies · Westerns
At Spahn Ranch: The Tragic Heart of Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood
Who are these people? Watching Cliff try to figure it out is painful, because we know the future, but such knowledge is not power. Within its imagined boundaries, Once Upon[…]
Drama · LGBT & Queer · Russia
Alexander Gorchilin’s Acid (2018): Putin-Friendly Arthouse
My point here isn’t to suggest that Gorchilin and Pecheykin are government lackeys bent on pleasing Vladimir Putin. They’re young filmmakers working in a totalitarian country and have constraints that[…]
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[…]
“An Act of the Will”: A Review of The Irishman
The Irishman is delicate and full of restraint — ironic for a gangster flick. The heart of the film is sorrowful, in mourning for the spiritual emptiness of a materialist[…]
Franchises & Series · Myth and Archetype · SF & Fantasy
“One Last Look at My Friends”: An Archetypal Review of Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker
Now, there is no reason or way to lay blame for this clash of styles, since Abrams devotees can fairly claim that Johnson started the revisionary process, and the Johnsonians[…]
Monterey Dreamin’: 45 Years of Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
In striving toward “that level of being real,” Burstyn handpicked much of the film’s eventual cast from her Actors Studio cohort – a decision that meshed well with both Scorsese’s[…]
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[…]
Comedy · Costume Drama · Historical & Epic
The Favourite (2018): A Comedy of Pity
This gets at the heart of The Favourite, which is one of the most evident trends in anti-sexist filmmaking lately: to be willing to portray women as unadulteratedly evil, as[…]
Of Parasites and Their Hosts: Bong Joon-ho’s Gisaengchung (2019)
One of the ways in which Parasite differs from many more naturalistic movies about urban poverty is that access to mediated experience is shown to be a function of opportunity[…]
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.”[…]
Franchises & Series · Superheroes
Joker: Sympathy Epic
“It’s there all the time, driving me out to wander the streets, following me, silently, but I can feel it there. It’s me, pursuing myself. . . . But who[…]
Dispatches #2 and #3 from Doc NYC: Mr. Toilet: The World’s #2 Man and We Believe in Dinosaurs
This is the second (and third) in a series of reviews by our New York correspondent Claire Baiz of entries in this year’s Doc NYC, the Big Apple’s – and one[…]
Franchises & Series · Superheroes
Lesser Expectations: Joker and Classical Hollywood Cinema
Phoenix’s body is mostly skin and bones, which is ironic since the film attempts to flesh out the Joker. In fact, this Joker’s ribs and shoulder blades seem to be[…]
Documentaries · Festivals & Awards · War
Dispatch #1 from 2019 Doc NYC: Barbara Kopple’s Desert One
This is the first in a series of reviews by our New York correspondent Claire Baiz of entries in this year’s Doc NYC, the Big Apple’s – and one of[…]
Eastern European · Festivals & Awards
Ready for the Close-up: Filmmaking Then and Now in the Baltic States
Note: We’re publishing this to coincide with New York’s Scandinavia House’s important second festival devoted to Baltic cinema. * * * Introduction The second New York Baltic Film Festival will[…]
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