“Certainly Kit’s story, like that of Charles Starkweather and indeed, that of Warshow’s gangsters, will end in his solitary demise, precisely because his actions have set him apart from others.[…]
“The notion that four nineteen-year-olds pledge to kill themselves if they, in essence, grow up, and then having grown up discover that adult life is nothing but misery and so[…]
Activist & Political · Asian · Reviews
“Something is rotten in the state of Kashmir” – Improvising Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It has taken rather long for a feature film set in Kashmir to get critical acclaim for its[…]
Activist & Political · Essays · Horror · Reviews · SF & Fantasy
There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part,[…]
Orson Welles’s Too Much Johnson is a youthful tribute to low comedy and reflects of his obsession with bygone times, cultural mores & means of expression.
Directors · Documentaries · Reviews · Writers & Critics
“Jodorowsky capitalizes on the cachet of exclusivity, the wonderful feeling of being one of the elite few who “get it,” and, in treating it like a source of esoteric wisdom,[…]
Note: Criterion has just released (August 12, 2014) Love Streams in a dual-format DVD/Blu-ray edition. See end of this article for details on extras. * * * “Every picture should[…]
This review of L.A. Confidential first appeared in Bright Lights in May 1998. We’ve always been fond of this piece, and are happy to repost it now, not least because[…]
“Based on the sample of crowdfunded films at BAM, “public” funding in a country where public, government funding for arts is rapidly diminishing and has long since paled in comparison[…]
“What if the birds’ extreme proximity to human beings and, particularly to Melanie, bespeaks not conflict but fascination, admiration, and – I shall just go ahead and say it –[…]
Directors · Exploitation & Erotica · Horror · Reviews
“I can always make something work, if I have a camera.” – John Landis There are two John Landises. There’s the director equally at home with comedy as he is[…]
Activist & Political · Reviews
“As the divide between rich and poor became more extreme, late 20th-century cinema required a new approach to achieve the same end: portraying the existence of the wealthy elite as[…]
“Inherent to defamiliarization or riddling is, of course, a process of refamiliarization: as the film proceeds, we wish to see the strange normalized, the riddle answered. But in The House with Laughing[…]
“While I get Sam Goldwyn’s point about messages and Western Union, I think Shakespeare is always sending the same one: to overcome our worst weaknesses, first we must see them[…]
With such recent releases as The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), and The Spectacular Now (2013), there continues to be no shortage of movies about young[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews · TV & Streaming · Westerns
Today is actor Richard Boone’s birthday (June 18, 1917 – January 10, 1981). We’re celebrating it by reprinting Alan Vanneman’s pithy write-up (previously published in issue 48, May 2005) of[…]
“What befalls Veta can perhaps be justified as part of the film’s critique of psychiatry; after all, her unfortunate experience mocks the short-sightedness and arbitrary operation of the mental health[…]
“Everything goes on in the mind of a man who, nominally at least, has absolute power at court and who, until a few moments before, felt secure in the mutual[…]
“Godzilla has no anarchy or eccentricity, much less any experimental spirit or Japanese weirdness. Edwards is too preoccupied with turning the movie into something new, serious, and, worst of all,[…]
Is the filmmaker tyrant, aesthete, ringmaster, or hermit? For whom does an artist create? It is a question frequently put, perhaps more to writers than to others, and perhaps the[…]
