How Jessica Biel’s Moral Hotness Tamed the West While Tobe Hooper’s original 1973 Texas Chainsaw Massacre stands tall in the orchards of horror academia as a symbol of the dismemberment[…]
We have met the enemy and he is us The Guardian (1990) concerns itself with the guardian spirits of trees. We’re told some guardian spirits are evil. In this very[…]
Life is earnest, sure, but why does art have to be? “No one got further in history with less intellectual baggage than Cicero,”1 as Freddie Binkard Artz2 liked to say.[…]
Romero’s canonical work remains timely decades later Introduction There has been a veritable outbreak of zombie films in the last few years, from Hollywood blockbusters Resident Evil (Anderson, 2002) and[…]
“You’d be hard to replace”? Damn near impossible! How hard is it to lose those last ten pounds, eh? Well, pretty damn hard, but if Ginger Rogers had been able[…]
Activist & Political · Reviews
We loved him, we loved him not Of all the Presidents the United States has had to endure over the last couple of centuries, this country’s relationship with Richard Nixon[…]
The body beautiful meets the body besieged Leni Riefenstahl and Fred Wiseman, though rarely grouped together, are in a category apart from most documentary filmmakers in that they both used[…]
Activist & Political · Festivals & Awards · Reviews
These docs and features show a world of upheaval – and, occasionally, hope The films portray images and tell stories that most of us would rather not see or hear.[…]
Activist & Political · Essays · Reviews
Watkins’ savaging of commodified culture remains disturbingly relevant After retailing Scotland’s Jacobite rebellion of 1746 to almost universal acclaim in Culloden (1964) and, in less than a year, establishing an[…]
Activist & Political · Directors · Documentaries · Reviews
On Dream Girls, The Day I Will Never Forget, Divorce Iranian Style, Shinjuku Boys, Gaea Girls, and Runaway The combination of reality TV and George W. Bush’s ascendancy (one wants[…]
Directors · Exploitation & Erotica · LGBT & Queer
“The whole world wears a jockstrap!” One of the late George Sanders’ greatest contributions to culture was found in an interview with Rex Reed (in the book Conversations in the[…]
Directors · Interviews · LGBT & Queer
Put the Camera on Me‘s queer wunderkind speaks I first saw Put the Camera on Me at the 2003 San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, and wrote about[…]
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[…]
