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[…]
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[…]
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,[…]
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[…]
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,[…]
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
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,[…]
“Like Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam, or the Scott brothers Ridley and Tony, Fincher is an auteur-facile, an auteur of illusory depth.”
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[…]
“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.”
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
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[…]
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[…]
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,[…]
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[…]
I’ve survived the family Xmas, and what saved us was the power of the movies. This got me to thinking about all the best dysfunctional family holiday films–I don’t mean[…]
The by now hideously distended Muppet franchise received another subpar entry on network television last night in the form of “A Muppet Christmas: Letters to Santa”. Is anyone else willing[…]
Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York is not one of those films (e.g., Baz Luhrman’s Australia) that lurches toward the audience with its metaphorical arms wide open, shouting “Love me!” On[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
Time keeps on slippin’ and the internet expands fast as the universe itself, which means we should all link to each other, lest distance grow long. I’ve had transcendence on[…]
Finally saw RACHEL GETTING MARRIED, which is like a Demme film reunion party that everyone’s invited to, but after you leave, you never see any of them again. And there’s[…]
