Franchises & Series · Thrillers & Action
The scriptwriters and fortune tellers have so cluttered the rest of the film with wild and haphazard injections of in jokes and outlandish gags … that it becomes repetitious and tedious.[…]
Experimental & Underground · Horror · Philosophy · Religion & Spirituality · Romance
Whatever else it is, mother! is ultimately a woman’s anxious nightmare about what it feels like to put your heart and soul into creating something only for people to take[…]
The stories of Dr. King Schultz, Irving Rosenfeld, and Nick Carver contain a critique of American society deeper than just “white guys always get the benefit of the doubt.” These[…]
Horror · Philosophy · Romance
Regardless of whether it is worth doing or not, people will continue to rely on memory as a way to create legacy and heritage. People will always leave things behind,[…]
Actors & Personalities · Film Technology & History · Silents
Ever since the ad appeared, there have been unanswered questions: who or what was behind the rumors of Florence Lawrence’s death? Did these rumors start because the fans of her[…]
Historical & Epic · LGBT & Queer
There are two major threads here. In one, the queer figure from history becomes a way to explore the consequences of existing in a society that wars against the individual’s[…]
While it’s always difficult to make such a claim with assurance – for decades Disney’s 1937 Goofy feature Hawaiian Holiday was confidently thought to hold that honor – Bobby Bumps[…]
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Directors
“The major point of convergence between Cassavetes and the Dogme movement is an oppositional realist form that blurs the boundaries between being and performing.”
Exploitation & Erotica · Franchises & Series · Producers & Studios
With summer starting to fade, what better way to while away the hours than by revisiting the beach, as imagined by exploitation studio American International Pictures in the early 1960s?[…]
A particular issue is the degree to which the film departs from “fact.” Significant departures from the historical record, if they become frequent enough, are sufficient to sabotage any “historical[…]
Though some have criticized Nolan’s rigidity and near mathematical precision in tackling a historical event (no doubt provoked by the director’s admittedly frustrating tendency to wax philosophic on his own[…]
Franchises & Series · SF & Fantasy
Is it rude to point out that male chimps don’t hug their sons? That’s because they don’t know they have sons! They aren’t “faithful” to their “wives,” which they don’t[…]
Actors & Personalities · Documentaries
Ingrid Bergman In Her Own Words makes clear that her life was messy and episodic, but she earned great love from her directors, co-stars, and family. Don’t wait for Mommie[…]
Comedy · Comics · Franchises & Series · SF & Fantasy
The recent passing of Adam West – who made Batman his own despite the many higher-profile claimants to the cape – reminds us of the feature film based on the witty TV[…]
Drama · Memoir · Religion & Spirituality · Women in Film
Both protagonists undertake a kind of “work of the self,” whereby they simultaneously come to terms with trauma – in one case, paternal betrayal, in the other, maternal abandonment by[…]
Comics · Franchises & Series · SF & Fantasy · Women in Film
Unshackled by the Snyder malaise – and ignoring the slow motion he made a fad with 300, which Jenkins curiously revisits with consistency verging on the fetishistic – Gadot roars.[…]
Activist & Political · African American · Historical & Epic · SF & Fantasy
Several questions suggest themselves. What ideological framework is revealed by the forwarding of a contemporary story in which the white man has lost his mojo and needs to struggle to[…]
Horror · LGBT & Queer · Writers & Critics
One of the few indelible images in director Robert Mulligan’s 1972 film of The Other is that of Niles in the freaks’ tent at the 4th of July fair, gazing[…]
Documentaries · Religion & Spirituality
Ciro Guerra’s Embrace of the Serpent (2016) can be read as a brilliant subversion of the colonising role that the camera plays in appropriating native cultures in favour of Western[…]
Activist & Political · Documentaries · War
Naturally, Huston was furious about the film’s suppression and remained so all through the intervening years. In his words, “I think it boils down to the fact that they wanted[…]
