The Code and its Perfect Specimens
There’s TWO pre-code sets out for spring: Forbidden Hollywood Vol. 3 and this week comes the Pre-Code Hollywood set from Universal. None of the films quite measure up to the[…]
Category: Movies
Against Interpretation: Synecdoche
Having recently bid a fond adieu to the post-DVD-release critical interest resurgence for Synecdoche, New York, it seems a ripe enough time for us to forget this dauntingly nebulous film[…]
Women in Wonderland, Part 5 – Coraline (Henry Selick 2009)
Every one of Henry Selick’s four feature films to date has dealt with alternate realities. In the Tim Burton-produced The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), the ghoulish Jack Skellington finds a[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
Bride of the Joker: Thoughts on Jolie
As we prepare for Oscar once again, we see Angelina Jolie nominated for being in Clint’s “craftsmanship” film, CHANGELING. I heartily admire Jolie but, for my money, she’s never found[…]
Women in Wonderland, Part 4 – MirrorMask, Pan’s Labyrinth, and the “Strangeness” Factor
Dave McKean’s MirrorMask (above) and Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth were released within a year of each other. Both are women-in-wonderland tales. Pan’s Labyrinth is about a little girl who[…]
Yea as I walk through the Uncanny Valley of Elah
Speaking of THE VALLEY OF ELAH, what about the Uncanny Valley, hat “misrecognition” which makes us creeped out by CGI animated humans? The proliferation of CGI has always fascinated me[…]
Women in Wonderland, Part 3 – Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock 1960)
The Alices in flight, those beautiful women alone in their cars on the run – Sylvia Kristel in Alice ou la Dernière Fugue, Candace Hilligoss in Carnival of Souls,[…]
Women in Wonderland, Part 2 – Alice, or the Last Flight (Claude Chabrol 1977)
Alice (Sylvia Kristel) has an argument with her husband. She drives off into the pouring rain. There is an accident. When she wakes up, the sun is shining, but something[…]
Deliver us from Craftsmanship
Preparing to go see Revolutionary Road tomorrow, I’m scoping out the RT and noticing the words “craftsmanship,” “Oscar-bait,” “meticulously crafted but emotionally empty,” and so forth… Oscar bait becomes oscarbate,[…]
Women in Wonderland, Part 1 – Lost Girls
All three meet as adult women in Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie’s X-rated graphic novel, Lost Girls (above). Moore, the genius author of Watchmen, From Hell, and The League of[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
Cooler Younger Sister Effect: Barbara Rush in MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION
The recent Criterion release of MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION (1954) makes a good–not great, but still worthy–addition to our cooler younger sister collection. This 1954 Douglas Sirk soap was a big,[…]
Deep and Wide: The 2008 American Film Institute Festival
A sampling of the best of the fest’s international offerings
Reflections Through a Golden Nigh: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
“Like Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam, or the Scott brothers Ridley and Tony, Fincher is an auteur-facile, an auteur of illusory depth.”
Bright Sights: Recent DVDs: The General, Douglas Fairbanks Silents, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Fighters, Real Money, Lady with the Dog
The General (Buster Keaton, 1926) Transferred from a print struck from the original camera negative, Kino’s recent two-disc presentation of The General looks shockingly new, as if Keaton had shot[…]
Little Stabs of Queer Happiness (and Horror): Random Short Reviews of the Worthy and the Worthless in Recent and Old School Cinema
“Heterosexual brides-to-be are one of the demographics that arrive by the busloads to partake of Darcelle’s mad mix of risqué zingers, over-the-top musical routines, and mother-hen reassurances.”
“A Universe Inside a Universe”: On Synecdoche, New York
synecdoche: a figure of speech in which a part is used for a whole, an individual for a class, a material for a thing, or the reverse of any of these (Ex.: bread for food, the army for a soldier, or copper for a penny) — Webster’s Online Dictionary
What’s the lowdown on Slumdog?
That’s precisely what a number of folks are attempting to ascertain in light of the accolades this British/US film (shot in the underbelly of India) is receiving. It very well[…]
What do Terrence Malick and Steely Dan have in common? Part 1
Let’s start with the most obvious correlation, other than perhaps the fact that both artists are likely to appeal to folks like me who strongly identify with the technical experimentation[…]
The Tao of Poverty Row
In the rush to “clean up” the images of classic cinema, to remove every speck and splice digitally, etc., are we not also losing something? What about the blurry,[…]
The AGE OF CONSENT and STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN (Aka A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH) on region 1 dvd
Remember a couple years ago when C. Jerry Kutner was singing the praises of Powell’s AGE of CONSENT right here in Bright Lights After Dark? Both the films on this[…]
Links + BSA
