Tortured Longing is the new coke
I can feel the Twilight zeitgeist in the air tonight, perhaps it’s because I live across from the cinema and the line around the block and I hear them out[…]
Category: Movies
Brothers in Cynicism
Every time a new film by the Coen brothers comes out, I dread having to hear from the same old so-and-so’s who can’t bear to slog through the Coens’ peculiar[…]
From Air Dolls to the Anchorage: The 2009 Vancouver International Film Festival
“VIFF remains the unspoiled oasis for cinephiles looking to get away from it all.”
Activist & Political · Crime · Historical & Epic · Reviews
The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover: Larry Cohen’s The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover
How a movie exposé of “abuse of power” defends those in power and their institutions
Reviews · Thrillers & Action · War
Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds: Film Kills
“Tarantino thus concedes some of his omnipotence to the medium he so deftly manipulates.”
Activist & Political · Drama · Reviews
Critical Distance: What Knowing Knows About 9/11
“Where Cloverfield provocatively blurs the line between being ‘about’ 9/11 and being (mere) entertainment, Knowing lands squarely in the latter camp.”
Far from Elementary: Debra Chasnoff’s Straightlaced: How Gender’s Got Us All Tied Up
“I told him, ‘I’m not gay. My neck was cold.'”
Activist & Political · Reviews · War
How James Stewart Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb: Anthony Mann’s Strategic Air Command
“Chew popcorn to avoid grinding teeth, comrades.”
Activist & Political · Reviews
“They Come in Peace”: Andy Fickman’s Race to Witch Mountain
“Only saviors can save polluted planets, yellow cab drivers are losers . . .”
Blake Edwards vs. Hollywood: Sunset and the Myth of Hollywood’s Golden Age
A tour of Edwards’ curious 1988 film, with side trips to variations by James Ivory, John Schlesinger, and others
Bright Sights: Recent DVDs: Play Time, Gaumont Treasures, Diary for My Children, Winstanley, Marlene, Bill Douglas Trilogy
An ongoing column that looks at some of the most intriguing of recent, under-the-radar releases
After the Surge: The 2009 Melbourne International Film Festival
“An alternative agenda for the festival might be: what can we make of modernism?”
Bucking the Tide: The 2009 New York Film Festival
This year’s strong, idiosyncratic line-up reminds us that moviegoing can still be more than “a museum experience”
Festivals & Awards · LGBT & Queer
Lucky 13: The 2009 Portland Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
Getting out of the ghetto
An Atheist’s Guide to “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
When you believe in things you don’t understand, you suffer. – Stevie Wonder * * * In 1949 Walt Disney Studios produced the last, and arguably the best, of their[…]
The Beautiful and the Darned: Avenging TWILIGHT
It’s massively popular, it’s ridiculously mopey, yet it’s also brooding, purple and relatively un-headache-inducing… in short, it’s everything you hate and love about Seattle if you ever tried to move[…]
Music & Musicals · Reviews · TV & Streaming
The Marienbad Music Video
So many music videos and television commercials have ripped off the imagery of Alain Resnais’s Last Year at Marienbad since its 1961 release that it makes perfect sense for someone[…]
The Vertigo-Narcissus Connection
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrQIV3aYfiw] In celebration of the birthday of director Michael Powell (1905-1990) today, I’d like to share with you this clip from Powell & Emeric Pressburger’s 1947 color masterpiece, Black Narcissus,[…]
Thoughts on Antichrist
I screened Lars Von Trier’s new film Antichrist a few nights ago in bed, on my iPod touch (insert slightly guilty shrug), while my wife slept beside me. Throughout most[…]
Documentaries · LGBT & Queer · Reviews
Alan Turing, 1912-1954, 2009
Since we’re commemorating dire events today, here’s one from queer history worth noting. From today’s Guardian website: Gordon Brown issued an unequivocal apology last night on behalf of the government[…]
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