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”[…]
Drama · Philosophy · SF & Fantasy
In this new reading of 2001, the monolith is used as a touchstone for considering a dozen tangents into iconoclastic cinema, the human and simian response to enigma, and the[…]
Exploitation & Erotica · Horror
Hell is for angels. Only the mighty are fallen Only the sun-touched can plummet to these depths. – Lenore Kandel * * * Something drove producer Herman Cohen and his[…]
Biopic · Drama · Men & Masculinity · Military and Paramilitary
Words, and the internal fictions they represented, would never be enough to join Mishima’s corporeal self to the abstract notion of beauty except in a dreamlike capacity, which would not[…]
The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object . . . which we do not suspect.1 – Marcel Proust,[…]
Crime · Drama · Family · French Cinema · Linguistics and Language
Daniel is presented as a talented pianist, with an intellect of one well beyond his years. He is both strong-willed and sensitive. He is affectionate with his mother, yet culturally[…]
Asian · Drama · Experimental & Underground
The reflexive nature of Hong’s formalism, in which stylistic decisions call attention to themselves and point to the mediating presence of the man behind the camera, makes it problematic to[…]
