Directors · Drama · DVD & Blu-ray · Westerns
Action scenes are what a summer audience wants, but in Pat Garrett the shootouts become episodic and lack the ratcheting up of tension, followed by its release at the climactic[…]
Drama · French Cinema · Uncategorized · Writers & Critics
I think the reason Bresson’s films resist singular interpretations is that they are composed of multiple, overlapping perspectives. His films contain elements of humanism, nihilism, absurdism, existentialism, transcendentalism, and numerous[…]
Iranian Cinema · Women in Film
Fereshteh: Sometimes I want to put on make-up, or wear beautiful dresses, or fall in love. I don’t know why, but I feel like I’m living in a small can,[…]
Books · Directors · Women in Film · Writers & Critics
Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius. St. Martin’s Press, 2024, 400pp., $30.00. * * * Published on the heels of Mark Harris’s[…]
Crime · Noir · Photo Essays
Debby refuses to be a passive victim of Vince Stone’s violence, fighting back and branding his face with boiling coffee as revenge. But while she’s no helpless victim, Lang’s ending[…]
Drama · LGBT & Queer · Music & Musicals
In Tár, Field fashions an improbable representation of power (Hernández, “Top Orchestras”) to advance the idea that power is faceless. But the idea is only to be believed if the[…]
Crime · Drama · Neo-Noir · Women in Film
“Oh, look. He’s being a good guy, so everybody can see him being a good guy.” – Officer James Gilpin observing Nick Dunne in Gone Girl (2014) There are many[…]
However, while other filmmakers got caught up in the heady, cocaine rush of the 1980s, Friedkin was harder to convince. When we dig a little deeper into his Los Angeles,[…]
Drama · Politics · Thrillers & Action
On its 30th anniversary, it also feels remarkably relevant in the wake of the recent Supreme Court ruling that presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for exercising “core” executive[…]
Directors · Experimental & Underground · Exploitation & Erotica · Franchises & Series · Horror · Indies · Women in Film
Just as his characters presume safety and security in their home space, so too does his audience approach each title with a sense of comfort through repeat exposures. The unseating[…]
Activist & Political · Class System · Crime · Essays · Franchises & Series · Myth and Archetype · Outsiders · Politics · SF & Fantasy · Societal Trends · Superheroes
If you want to make a popular blockbuster, it better be about the right kind of person – and the right kind of person isn’t a loser. A decade ago,[…]
Comedy · Drama · Interviews · Picaresque · Producers & Studios
A conversation with Palme d’Or-winning producer Alex Coco * * * In Sean Price William’s The Sweet East, we are told “Everything Will Happen,” which may be a warning to[…]
The film is intent on the present, an element of the fifties go-getter types and the emergence of the organization man. The stress on “man” comes during post-World War II[…]
Horror · Indies · Mental Illness · Sex & Relationships · SF & Fantasy
It is not that there is something wrong with Jodorowsky’s perseveration on sex and violence per se; it is that he is not saying anything about it. It is an[…]
Exploitation & Erotica · Mondo Culture · SF & Fantasy · Superheroes · Thrillers & Action
Turkish exploitation movies are one of the most elusive gold mines of film history. * * * Currently, no exclusive history of Turksploitation cinema exists in print. The most exhaustive[…]
Counterculture · Indies · LGBT & Queer · Sex & Relationships
Portrait of Rick Castro by Nadine Dinter, used with permission of the photographer Rick Castro talks to Tony Conn about his film Hustler White, his varied career, and his[…]
“Solving” the film’s psychological mysteries – understanding how Adam’s ghosts arise from his grief – is the film’s central interpretive demand, and one of its pleasures. It’s the film’s conclusion[…]
Drama · Eco · Games & Gaming · Literature and Film · SF & Fantasy · War
The everyday hero is a foreign concept in a universe where obscure machinations corrode a society that blindly follows in the hopes of stability and lasting glory. * * *[…]
Drama · Eco · Eco-horror · Horror · Urban Conflict
On the face of it, C.H.U.D. might look like a superficial protest against this schema – like a trite version of David and Goliath wherein the tenacity of a neighbourhood[…]
Actors & Personalities · Books · Drama
Cocktails with George and Martha: Movies, Marriage and the Making of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? By Philip Gefter. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024. $42.00 * * * I love “making of”[…]
