Documentaries · LGBT & Queer · Reviews
“I’m bad, but I’m locked up.” When we think about how society reinforces its laws, we usually think of law enforcement agencies doing what they’re contracted to do in protecting[…]
Activist & Political · Documentaries · Experimental & Underground
Navigating a haunted, and haunting, world In 1994, film historian and programmer Jenni Olson’s friend Mark Finch, a critic who was co-director with Olson of the San Francisco International Lesbian[…]
Steven Spielberg meets Tom Cruise (again), and things get boring (again) Leave it to Steven Spielberg to screw up an alien invasion. El Stevo’s remake of the 1953 George Pal[…]
Anger leads to fear, fear leads to hate, hate leads to suffering … Episode III is here and it’s deep, dark and delightful. It clears up many things that were[…]
Animation · LGBT & Queer · Reviews · TV & Streaming
He’s fun-damental, not fundamentalist! He’s a Candide for the 21st century, facing the everyday predicaments of the human condition with a sunny optimism and unreasonable zest that seem borderline manic,[…]
Suzuki blows morning glories “No man should love a raccoon.” Wise words indeed, even if they address a problem few will encounter, but that’s one lesson taught in Seijun Suzuki’s[…]
Documentaries · Music & Musicals · Reviews
“You start having to wash two times a day and grow hair in weird places.” “I like moving my hips, a lot!” That’s one preteen girl enthusing about the pleasures[…]
Say “Slartibartfast” fast three times Well, Earth is destroyed, but luckily our guy-next-door, Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman), is best friends with an alien, Ford Prefect (Mos Def), who saves his[…]
It’s one step forward, two steps backward as our long national aureoline nightmare refuses to end Were you, like me, drawn as a moth to a flame to attend the[…]
Essays · Experimental & Underground
As the covert bottom-line interests of capitalist film distribution circumscribe our viewing options as much as overt censorship ever could, we should earnestly applaud the arrival of the new “INDEX”[…]
“My sound is the absence of me.” – Elmore Leonard The curious thing about Elmore Leonard is that while his books move fast, the films that capture his tone seem[…]
“We have all the time in the world” A cult audience was [. . .] recruited when the National Film Theatre ran a season of Bond films in 1980. Of[…]
“In short, completely normal.” A great deal of how the Third Reich presented itself and how we have come to know it is visual. Early on, the Nazis understood the[…]
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Directors · Silents
“Love backed by force, forgiveness sweet, brings hope and peace to Easy Street” “Fulfilling my contract with Mutual was, I suppose, the happiest period of my life.” Charlie Chaplin had[…]
These “noble savages” — and the issues they embody — deserve better
DVD & Blu-ray · Noir · Reviews
No matter what she says, don’t upset her
“This is the universe. Big, isn’t it.”
DVD & Blu-ray · LGBT & Queer · Silents
Kino’s unusual series spotlights German silent gay-themed cinema
Jon Halliday’s indispensable Sirk on Sirk has confirmed what Sirk’s admirers and students had long suspected: that his films are not all equally “personal,” and that he had a much[…]
In Douglas Sirk’s world, romantic love doesn’t play much of a part. His characters are boxed into ruts which are ever-deepening; they cannot understand themselves or their desperate predicaments, let[…]
