Hope and History: Beyond Violence
By means of horror?
Category: Genres
Activist & Political · Reviews
Blue Jasmine and the Great Recession: Paean for Our National Nightmares
“Allen delineates the gaudy days of the subprime years and the divided nation in its aftermath — one divided by misfortune, political and economic abuses and a sense of cultural and social malaise. With a central character who complements both aisles of the economic divide with her 1% past and Generation Y career struggles and a narrative that captures a virulent political right from the financial elites of Wall Street to the angry blue collar workers of San Francisco, Allen’s film is a bitter complement to our post Lehman-Brothers era.”
Experimental & Underground · Reviews
The Church of Holy Motors: A Transformation in Metafilm
“What is fantasy when scripted shows that dominate popular culture are labeled ‘reality’ and social media allows everyone to be their own celebrity and put on their own performance of their best self?”
Between Artless Passions and Anal Hells: On the Edinburgh Festival’s Production of Marlowe’s Edward II
“Why should you love him who the world hates so?”
Activist & Political · Reviews
David Ayer’s End of Watch (2012) and the Militarization of U.S. Law Enforcement
“End of Watch incorporates the visual and narrative codes of Iraq War films, inviting the viewer to draw a comparison between the battlegrounds of the “war on terror” and the mean streets of Los Angeles.”
Asian · Reviews · Uncategorized
Poetry as Motion: Taking a Closer Look at Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmaster
“Now the fight becomes something more than a contest of wills, it becomes a careful discovery of kindred spirits as seen through a reciprocal poetry of martial arts form.”
Actors & Personalities · Music & Musicals
It’s Always Fair Weather? I’m Afraid Not: Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse Say Good-bye to Broadway
What’s black and white and destroys Western Civilization?
Comedy · Directors · Essays · Writers & Critics
Team Apatow and the Tropes of Geek-Centered Romantic Comedy
“Nowadays, schlubs play schlubs and audiences are expected to accept that geeky males can win over classically beautiful women. What does it tell us about the state of gender relations, sexual fantasy, and desire that a physically average geek like Seth Rogen can trump an iconically attractive and glamorous star like Cary Grant?”
Existential Lethargy: Hong Sang-soo’s Nobody’s Daughter Haewon (2013)
“Jung Eun-chae is a graceful, beautiful Haewon, but her daydreams seem facile, and the backpack she wears for most of the movie — which seems to be empty — tempers this statuesque gracefulness, rendering Haewon an awkward sightseer or a precocious child on a first-time school trip.”
Structural/Sexual Transgression: Todd Haynes’ Poison as a Critique of Homonormativity
“In the Washington Times I was called ‘the Fellini of Fellatio’ — a proud moment!” —Todd Haynes, “From Underground to Multiplex”
Red Leaves and Evil: Haunted October 2013 Film Guide (TCM, 10/21-10/31)
Man, Turner Classic Movies has gone off the deep end with this erratic last two weeks before the autumnal solstice and sacrifice of the virgin, the spilling of his blood across the fields, the burning of the Barleycorn effigy, the return of Guy Fawkes, the anti-pope in the silver castle, the shambling junkies of Dean Street. and Onwards. As a trained expert in the cinemarcane allow me to steer your DV-R record finger to these off-kilter spook shows:
AMERICAN MARY (2012) and the Female-Centered Horror Film
Watching the season premiere of American Horror Story Coven and the Soska Sisters’ American Mary back-to-back, I couldn’t help but notice certain … recurrences. Both works feature a scene in[…]
Future Recall: 10 Cage-Free Horror Films on the Web (Netflix, AMC, youtube) that span time…
The discriminating October film enthusiast knows that sometimes bad is better… unless there’s something great you still haven’t seen, and sometimes you can see too much, like the dispiriting amount of torture porn titles on Netflix… Well, HEY! Here’s ten films either free on youtube, AMC, or Netflix Streaming that are MIND-bending, not pliers-bending
Haunted October 13 Film Guide (TCM, 10/1-10/19)
And of course, there’s the horror movies. The speeding darkness and chill draws ghosts and candelabras, witches, demons, and monsters to our cinematic desires like a magnet. And TCM is there. As are we at the Bright Lights After Dark, where we turn those bright lights way, way, way down, so you can’t see the thing.
DVD & Blu-ray · Exploitation & Erotica
“Rated R for Retro” Scream Factory Loves the 80s
With Scream! it’s now possible to realize that the 80s as the best decade ever for schlock movies; grindhouses and drive-ins still lured us in like evil aunts. And best of all, we could still be genuinely scared.
Actors & Personalities · Exploitation & Erotica
Soul Diva, John Waters Star Jean Hill Dies
When people die there is usually an element of shock to the news, but when I heard Jean Hill passed away this week (8/21/13) I wasn’t shocked, since her health[…]
DVD & Blu-ray · Horror · Noir
A Stranger Arrives in Town: Francis Coppola’s TWIXT (2011)
How do you begin a story? If I told you a story begins with the arrival of a stranger in town, you would probably think I was talking about a[…]
Touched by a Zombie: Warm Bodies, ParaNorman
Not since Gene Wilder made nice with his monster in Young Frankenstein or the cannibal mutant got the girl (Tucker and Dale vs. Evil) have our deformed horror staples been so effectively pulled from their scar tissue and replaced with loving stitches. We needed these films, like a salve to our nation’s red vs. blue infection.
Book Review – The Worldwide Film Noir Tradition: The Complete Reference to Classic Dark Cinema from America, Britain, France and Other Countries Across the Globe by Spencer Selby
The Worldwide Film Noir Tradition: The Complete Reference to Classic Dark Cinema from America, Britain, France and Other Countries Across the Globe by Spencer Selby. Ames, Iowa: Sink Press, 2013. […]
Historical & Epic · Reviews · Silents
What Becomes a Legend Most: Fritz Lang Adapts the Nibelungenlied
“If head and heart are united, harmony can exist even in the midst of strife. Let them come into opposition, however, and chaos enters from which there is no escape and no conclusion possible except a tragic one.” — Francis G. Gentry. “Triuwe and Vriunt in the Nibelungenlied.” Amsterdam: Rodopi: 1975. p. 45.”Perception is everything. It turns villains into heroes and victims into collaborators.” — Hilary Mantel. “A Change of Climate.” New York: Henry Holt and Company: 1997. p. 317.
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