DVD & Blu-ray · Historical & Epic · Reviews
“What do such large loose baggy monsters, with their queer elements of the accidental and the arbitrary, artistically mean?” – Henry James, from the preface of his novel The Tragic[…]
For a variety of reasons, then, despite its high-gloss finish, the film did not achieve any real commercial success. This is not to say it was an artistic letdown, as[…]
These characters speak lines that contain emotion but show none of it themselves, even when they’re the exact same lines as before. And when they’re new, they show no old[…]
Animation · LGBT & Queer · Memoir
As a child, singing the Ariel aahs was synonymous for me with being or becoming Ariel. More than looking like her, dressing like her, acting like her – all of[…]
African American · Cinematographers · Designers · Editors · Interviews
We spent a lot of time going through references for the film as well as scouting iconic locations, but what it came down to was devoting ourselves to creating a[…]
Horror · Interviews · Movies · SF & Fantasy
* * * It’s The Day of the Triffids’ fault: when he was a wee lad stuck at home in front of the television with a sprained arm (fault: sister,[…]
Martyrdom suits Brown’s purpose, and it is in this extremism that he is ultimately un-American. His cause may be morally right but his attempt to impose it is not; the[…]
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Drama · Essays · Romance
QT’s films are commonly hurtling toward darkness, yet Once Upon feels like a repudiation, as much as a culmination, of his oeuvre. There’s a point in the experience where the[…]
Huston, unlike Crane and his readers, had the actual experience of combat before him. What he discovered in Italy validated much of what Crane wrote. Huston, too, would attempt in[…]
This comparison shows Dark Victory to be conservative, and Now, Voyager to be liberal, on the question of how women can achieve lasting satisfaction. Of course, in Dark Victory one[…]
“. . . a jewel with facets of disease running all through it.” – Lester Bangs * * * It was once said that the real heroes of 18th-century writer[…]
As part of their liberation from convention, Corman empowers female characters with choices both real and metaphorical. Even a common love triangle can represent female empowerment, with the choice between[…]
Franchises & Series · Superheroes
This is all to say that Endgame is more interested in fantasy outcomes than solving the problems it gives itself. It promises us a future more bearable than our present[…]
Actors & Personalities · Hollywood
INTRODUCTION Jean Harlow (1911-1937), born Harlean Carpenter, rose to screen fame in the early 1930s playing characters with an unaffected, uninhibited, spontaneous sexuality. [See Figure 1.] Dubbed the “Platinum Blonde”[…]
“We’ve met before, haven’t we?” – The Mystery Man in Lost Highway * * * David Lynch is not a horror director. With the possible exception of Eraserhead, his films[…]
But goes on being itself * * * True Love in cinema is more than fine acting, well-written scripts, or even directorial tone. Not that IMDb cast and crew should[…]
What interests me (and I suspect, Assayas) is not so much the substance of these dinner table debates, which tend to move in predictable repeating circles, as their texture. People[…]
The movie’s reviews were mixed, and it failed to make a profit in the summer of 1975. . . . but Night Moves has gone on to be recognised as[…]
Drama · Music & Musicals · War
Suddenly jazz became a major taboo in Soviet society until Stalin’s death. In Western Europe, by contrast, mainly in Paris, jazz took off after the Nazis’ defeat in the hues[…]
Actors & Personalities · Commentary · Silents
Those who affect a superior attitude toward a great artist such as Lillian Gish are not only ignorant of our cultural heritage but stubbornly unaware that art usually comes from[…]
