Essays · Historical & Epic · Music & Musicals
“Not frustration of a desire of the subject, but frustration by an object in which his desire is alienated and which the more it is elaborated, the more profound the alienation from his jouissance becomes for the subject.”
“A seemingly average person continually surprises and unsettles us by doing something strange and following it up with something even more spectacularly strange.”
“It’s just a little less Disney”
Drama · Essays · Uncategorized
“It’s almost as if The Misfit himself were behind the camera.”
“In classic Egoyan style, the humor is always also terrifying. . .”
The scandal-plagued release of Lars von Trier’s latest film inspired Jack Stevenson, American expat in Copenhagen, to take a deeper look at the film in a Danish context.
In America, the 1960s were the golden age of the foreign film. Film directors like Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard, Ingmar Bergman, and Alain Resnais were considered “superstars,” and[…]
Directors · Exploitation & Erotica · Reviews
It’s a shame that Ed Wood’s last non-skin film, NIGHT OF THE GHOULS (1959), had to go unseen all through the prime time of Wade Williams’ TV horror package. It[…]
Directors · Exploitation & Erotica · Reviews
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLgx38t7AQ4] [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAdAixzYq-k] Thank you, Spirit of Ed Wood Blogathon, for giving me an excuse to write about José Mojica Marins, the Brazilian screenwriter, director, and star of films every bit[…]
The first is a supernatural horror film. The second is a horror story without any trace of the supernatural. Otherwise, they are remarkably similar. Both apply the horror film’s fundamental[…]
Actors & Personalities · Exploitation & Erotica · Pre-Code
Hazy thoughts on the transition from real sex to digital hallucinations
One of the world’s largest cinema events is also one of the most ambitious
“You can depend on Jason.”
Thank God for the Benny Goodman Quartet
Essays · Exploitation & Erotica
“Nude on the Moon’s exploitation is as innocent as the Good Christo-Nudist’s reclaiming of a pre-figleafed (albeit non-recreational) Eden.”
Essays · LGBT & Queer · Photo Essays
“Be aware: there are forces at work here of which we have no knowledge.”
Actors & Personalities · Asian · Silents
“This is an actress who shows excitement down to the curl of her fingers, and whose face reveals every kind of mercurial change.”
“Tex Avery — Arch Radicalizer of the Hollywood Cartoon” consists of slightly glorified program notes that I wrote for the Zagreb Animation Festival in 1978. It was a big hit in the Old World and was published in Russian, Croatian, Dutch, French, and Italian (twice), but the only time it ever got printed in English was by Gary Morris in his cinephile-revered rag called Bright Lights. Now, thirty-one years later, Mr. Morris has decided to reissue the piece online. I have forgone attempting any actual rewrites, though, because the observations have not dated especially egregiously, except for my discussion of the then-current state of cartoon criticism. The biggest faux pas contained herein is my overconfident assertion that cel animation would inevitably dominate the future of the medium (oops – maybe not), as CGI was then but a distant pixel on the historical horizon.
