In Praise of Dangerous Men: Patton (1970)
“The very idea of losing is hateful to Americans.”
Category: Genres
Animation · Essays · SF & Fantasy
Living Backward: The Millennials’ Alice
“We are but older children, dear, Who fret to find our bedtime near.” — Lewis Carroll, “Child of the Pure Unclouded Brow”
Crime · Drama · Exploitation & Erotica
Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom: An Introduction
Take your seats for a “dark-hearted, midnight fantasia of ecstatic sadism, voyeurism and psychosis”!
Actors & Personalities · Comedy
Forgotten Charleys I: Charley Bowers: Silent Comedy’s Wizard of the Bizarre
“He is Aladdin and the camera is his lamp.” — James R. Quirk
Activist & Political · LGBT & Queer
The Irish Queer vs. the IRA Macho in Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto
“The transvestite’s camp humor is here used to stress the unsustainability of the military discourses on which the justification of IRA terrorism is based.”
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Silents
Forgotten Charleys II: Charley Chase: Mr. Normal Unleashes His Comic Demon
“He could be suave or awkward, likable or pesky, average or eccentric, a winner or a loser, a fussy nerd or the life of the party, all the while remaining Charley Chase.”
Activist & Political · Documentaries
Troubled Waters: Crashing into The Cove
“To twist Gayatri Spivak’s famous phrase, it’s a case of (mostly) ‘white men saving cute dolphins from yellow men.'”
Activist & Political · Documentaries · Essays
Corn-Fed Culture: Living Large and “Eating Shit” in King Corn and Fast Food Nation
“The films analyzed here explore the (crude) question: what are the individual and social consequences of eating shit?”
Animation · Crime · TV & Streaming · Westerns
TV Notes: Bandits, Crime Fighters, and Bounty Hunters
“When you come at the king, you best not miss.”
Why Do We Crave Horror? Evolutionary Psychology and Viewer Response to Horror Films
“We do not realize that ‘normal’ behavior needs to be explained at all.” —Laura Cosmides “Monsters today seem to be everywhere, and they cannot be destroyed. ” —Stephen Prince
Essays · Exploitation & Erotica · Horror
Someone to Fight Over Me: Feminism, S&M, and the Daemonic in Twilight
“The pain is my only reminder that he [Edward] was real.” — Bella (Kristen Stewart)
Actors & Personalities · Silents
Florence Lawrence: “The First Movie Star”
“Lawrence had become a movie star for many reasons — gentleness, grace, that silky hair, and what Laemmle assessed as ‘sensational bubbies.'”
Reconceptualizing the Uncanny Vampire: Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day
“We are no longer in an era of vampire stories.” — Jean-Luc Nancy
Repo Men on DVD
Could any film hit closer to our cultural amygdalae than Repo Men? Millions of people have seen the “American Dream” crumble before them during the Great Recession and can’t help[…]
An Exit Through the Boundaries of Documentary
“Functionless art is simply tolerated vandalism.” – Peter Steele (1962-2010) From here comes a rich smell drawn from a load of bullshit. And in no way am I demeaning the practice of street art by[…]
Bigger Than Life’s Sci-Fi Twin
No one with eyes and a brain could seriously dispute Nicholas Ray’s role as the primary auteur of Bigger Than Life. All you need to do is watch Ray’s Rebel[…]
Girlies and Spider Babies living down the Lane
This spring, I’m all about homicidal nymphets, and wouldn’t you know it, so is Stacie Ponder at Final Girl, who’s hosting a big SPIDER BABY event at her Final Girl[…]
Eastern European Animation Dept. – Renaissance (Walerian Borowczyk, 1963)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAirHKywhSc”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAirHKywhSc] I think this is one of the greatest short films ever made. Containing not a word of spoken dialogue. Not only is the stop motion animation exquisite and amusing,[…]
Music & Musicals · Reviews · Uncategorized
The Runaways Get Bio-Picked
If the brief stardom of Buddy Holly and the even briefer star of Ritchie Valens should get the Hollywood biopic treatment, then why not the first all-girl balls-out rock act?[…]
Activist & Political · Festivals & Awards
Oscars II: On The Hurt Locker
As a tonic to all the hoopla surrounding The Hurt Locker and its Oscar win as Best Picture, we’re reprinting BL writer Jay Rothermel’s provocative review of the film, originally[…]
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