Documentaries · Festivals & Awards
Warsaw Doc Festival
The Miscreants of Taliwood, dir. George Gittoes Nénette, dir. Nicolas Philibert I recently spent a week at the Warsaw Documentary Film Festival. The two films that made the deepest impression[…]
Category: Genres
Two in the Wave: Fathers of a Revolution
If any movement made cinema history into a reactionary narrative, it would be the French New Wave. A batch of cinephiles, most working as critics for Cahiers du Cinema (established[…]
Frazetta and the Mothman
Another masterpiece by the late Frank Frazetta (1928-2010), and a classic example of how Hollywood studio thinking — a misguided attempt to reach the widest demographic possible — destroyed the potential[…]
Babies: A Nature Doc Starring Humans
From the outset, it seems to be a bold-faced cash-in culled from little investment. In Babies, a French-produced doc which got a surprisingly wide release this past weekend, we have[…]
Directors · Reviews · SF & Fantasy
William Cameron Menzies and the Totalitarian Menace
Can a film’s designer be its effective auteur? He can, if his name is William Cameron Menzies. Menzies is best known for directing and designing two classics of the science[…]
In Praise of Dangerous Men: Patton (1970)
“The very idea of losing is hateful to Americans.”
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
“Fucking Queer”: Eastern Promises and the Traditions of Noir
“The filmmaker, having scrupulously established the world of film noir, queers it by shattering the categories — both narrative and cinematic — of the world itself.”
Memoir · SF & Fantasy · Writers & Critics
Wild Love: Spike Jonze Meets Maurice Sendak in Where the Wild Things Are
“I’ll eat you up. I love you so.”
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