Historical & Epic · Politics · Religion & Spirituality · Satire · Sex & Relationships
Russell’s principal avatar in this film is Louis XIII, the Carnival King and Lord of Misrule. Devoted to ersatz relics and to his “tacky stage farce,” he quietly uncovers not[…]
AI · Asian · Philosophy · Revolution · SF & Fantasy
ABSTRACT Marx’s idea of species being is the recognition by humans that their work is carried out for the sake of other humans (rather than for any god or ruler).[…]
Drama · LGBT & Queer · Romance
Elias does not label his sexuality, simply telling his mother: “I’m in love with Alexander.” That neither Elias nor Alexander labels his sexuality serves the film well. It is an[…]
Activist & Political · Counterculture · Drama · Exploitation & Erotica · Indies · LGBT & Queer · Neo-Noir · New Genres · Noir · Road Movies · Sex & Relationships
Though several deliciously sordid queer noirs have made their way into the cultural fabric of the past decades (Mulholland Dr. [2001], Stranger By The Lake [2013], The Handmaiden [2016]), 2024[…]
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Directors · Drama
“A true artist” Cukor called Judy Holliday. “She could interpret a text with the subtlest detail.” Their creative relationship brought out the qualities that made her a new kind of[…]
Crime · LGBT & Queer · Men & Masculinity · Sex & Relationships
“I don’t make a film because I’m against something. For that matter, I don’t make a film because I’m for something — don’t make propaganda. If anything, all the films[…]
Essays · Movies · Philosophy
Before any immediate plot, the viewer is invited to experience time, allowing images to speak before words, establishing a dialogue between the contemplative time on the screen and the subjective[…]
Found Footage · Horror · Indies · Uncategorized
If all horror is a revelation of subterranean fears and anxieties, the found-footage subgenre uses techniques of amateur documentary filmmaking to place you in a lateral reality and then dig[…]
SHEMP! The Biography of the Three Stooges’ Shemp Howard, the Face of Film Comedy, by Burt Kearns. Applause Books, 2024, 280pp. $32.95 On March 11, 1895, a masterclass in American[…]
Drama · DVD & Blu-ray · Melodrama · Silents
When what you write about is what you see/What do you write about when it’s dark? ~ Charles Wright “You’ll have to kill me to get rid of me.” Criterion’s[…]
Actors & Personalities · Drama · Horror · Memorial · Mystery · Thrillers & Action
In Don’t Look Now, so much of this atmosphere hinges on the film’s unique style, one that often gets in the way of smooth narrative communication and clearly defined characters.[…]
Body Horror · Cults · Feminism · Horror · Satire
The lead actress of the 1975 film, Katherine Ross, later stated that she herself would rewrite this ending to have Joanna “fight harder”– a sentiment that the 2004 adaptation seems[…]
Biopic · Business · Men & Masculinity · Sports
If Ferrari is arguably Mann’s most flawed protagonist, he is also one of his most tragic – fully sold to a system that requires him to develop an almost inhuman[…]
It’s in Hobson’s Choice that De Banzie and Mills effect one of the warmest and most real accounts of love and marriage ever put on film. Of many effortlessly achieved[…]
Keiko reveals two traumatic truths, both in the form of questions to Hirayama, that cause us to fundamentally rethink our perceptions, namely (1) do you ever intend on visiting our[…]
Nature · New Genres · New Media
You could take encouragement in the fact Aronofsky is making movies with hopeful messages like PFE instead of films that end with newborn babies being eaten, but you might just[…]
Crime · Franchises & Series · Horror
Perhaps for some, knowing the real-life context heightens the film’s effect. Or it irreparably takes the viewer out of the experience. In either case, the Creeper is, in fact, a[…]
Drama · Exile and Displacement · Neorealism · Refugees
Green Border soars and stumbles because it overreaches in its gravitas and humanity, lingering a little too long and stretching a moment out of shape like all great neorealist films[…]
Directors · Experimental & Underground · Film Technology & History · Interviews
3D is used to record visual reality, but that’s where I take off to the unimaginable. We are (wonderfully) constrained by our particular physiognomy and I wouldn’t change a thing,[…]
Celebrity Culture · Comedy · Hollywood · Road Movies
Road to Morocco made the National Film Registry by going to the Mojave Desert in California and using rear screen projection. It didn’t need to go to a “real” casbah.[…]
