Directors · Experimental & Underground
pa·limp·sest: n., Writing material (as a parchment or tablet) used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased; something having usually diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the[…]
“Shot in earthbound Eastman color, It’s Always Fair Weather doesn’t look or feel like the Technicolor froth that preceded it.” There’s a scene in the 1949 musical On the Town when Frank[…]
Not the usual suspects Way back in 1987, two vampire movies were released within a few months of each other. The first was Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys, a big[…]
Jürgen Flimm and Brian Large supply a stage production that lives on DVD A stage production that doesn’t look stagy on home video? I said it couldn’t be done, more[…]
“Glassman uncovers networks of influence and inference, whole microhistories around the camera . . . “ Interviewed by Peter Cowie for Cowie’s book Revolution! The Explosion of World Cinema in[…]
Actors & Personalities · Silents
“LOST CHILD WANTED — Last seen with a little man with large flat feet and a small moustache” In 1917, for the first time in his life, Charlie Chaplin took[…]
“The film is a kind of subtle argumentation by analogy, whose success rests on the viewer’s desire to identify with Gore.” Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth may get the honor[…]
“Lord, my Lord! How true it is that whoever work for you is paid in troubles.” ~ St. Teresa of Avila Junkies and saints know about giving. After shooting up[…]
If almost any director or screenwriter other than Richard Linklater had been given the opportunity to make Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly into a movie, I think their immediate[…]
Documentaries · Music & Musicals · Reviews
A group of rather spectacular performers – Nick Cave, Rufus Wainwright, Anna McGarrigle, Martha Wainwright, Kate McGarrigle and Antony among them — gathered at the Sydney Opera House in 2005[…]
This is one close-up Louis B. Mayer wasn’t ready for There was a time when it seemed that Billy Wilder would live forever. Although he stopped directing films in 1981,[…]
Can cinema do what politicians cannot? A 2003 article in the New York Times observed that movies in South Korea are contributing toward anti-American feelings among young people.((James Brooke, “When[…]
Pitch-black pessimism, unsparing emotional truths, and women on the verge In the eighties, an impressive full-scale retrospective of Mikio Naruse’s films traveled the world and his reputation in the West[…]
Directors · Exploitation & Erotica · Interviews · LGBT & Queer · Visual Artists
“I don’t live in a harem either, but well, God, I did for awhile …” Introduction My first viewing of Pink Narcissus (1971) took place in a Gay and Lesbian[…]
Documentaries · LGBT & Queer · Reviews
Assimilate this Like any marginalized culture, queerdom carries on its own constant internal debate: to separate or assimilate? Separation means embracing the inner pervert, celebrating the diversity in the community[…]
Directors · Music & Musicals · Producers & Studios · Reviews
Come and meet those dancing feet, and pianos, and buildings, and . . . Give the nearest Warner Home Video executive a big hug. The company has at last remastered[…]
Festivals & Awards · LGBT & Queer
Out of the closets and onto the screen Queer film festivals have always been a crucial flashpoint for community. Starting in the 1970s, with the now sprawling San Francisco version,[…]
Actors & Personalities · Genres
All movies have the potential to become a non-movie, particularly when the movie showcases a cause, a disease, a celebrity, an actor’s virtuosity, a play or musical. The movie becomes[…]
Documentaries · Visual Artists
“All there is to do now is scream.” One view of “outsider art” is that it’s often the product of a hyper-productive, typically male naif who’s closer to his own[…]
“A Hollywood Satan is a persistent devil” There is a simple, plain logic to sequels. Capitalize on the prodigious success of the original movie. Sometimes the box office success of[…]
