Note for a “Round the Way Girl”: Craig Brewer’s Hustle & Flow
“In Hustle, we can appreciate Nola’s (Taryn Manning) yearning to be more than a pimp’s pussy cash box …” Hmmmm … a film about a street hustling pimp with rap star[…]
Category: Reviews
Still the Same Old Story? Definitely. Ed Zwick’s Blood Diamond
When Leo met Bogy Can white people with regular features still save the world? Hey, we’re in Hollywood, aren’t we? The answer is not no. Blood Diamond serves up some[…]
Cinephilia in Turin: Davide Ferrario’s Dopo Mezzanotte (Italy, 2004)
Passion in a handful of dust Amanda: “Don’t you have a TV?” Martino: “No. Just movies.” Dopo Mezzanotte begins with sound and fury: a mysterious hero clad in black leather[…]
Dude, Where’s My Suicide Pill? Alfonso Cuarón’s The Children of Men
One virgin birth too many There are two reasons why I hate going to art films. The first is that everyone in the audience is as old as I am.[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
Looking at Charlie: The Idle Class, Pay Day, The Pilgrim, and A Woman of Paris
“Now, Goliath was a big man.” With the release of The Kid in 1921, Charlie Chaplin had fulfilled his dream of making a full-length comedy that would be recognized as[…]
Blood Diamond: Can white people with regular features still save the world?
Hey, we’re in Hollywood, aren’t we? The answer is not no. Blood Diamond serves up some of the grimmest images of modern Africa, young boys trained to be genocidal murderers,[…]
A Woman in Trouble is Rescued and Loved
David Lynch’s Inland Empire, which runs 172 minutes, keeps collapsing in on itself. This is sure to frustrate most people, even Lynch fans. (I was not a big Lynch fan[…]
Capsized: A Tale of Two Poseidons
Society overboard! Upon the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 commentators have argued that American popular cultural has not changed significantly. Any minor changes have been[…]
Just Another Guy on the Lost Highway: Revisiting Two-Lane Blacktop
“It’s not some metaphorical struggle between two mighty kings of the road. It’s more like a self-deceiving ritual carried out by two of its prisoners.” In their April 1971 issue,[…]
Game Over, Curtains Close: The Creative Failure of Videogame Movies
Lost in translation In the past three years, the cineplexes have been saturated with movies based on videogames, including big-screen adaptations of the Super Mario Brothers, Tomb Raider, Alone in[…]
“We Still Have to Work Just as Hard as Before”: Michael Glawogger’s Workingman’s Death
“The tourist says that it’s a lot to carry and the worker agrees, then gets on with his work.” Fifteen years after the fall of the Iron Curtain and the[…]
Hairy on the Inside: Surrealism and Sexual Anxiety in Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves
“If there’s a beast in men, it meets its match in women too.” The Company of Wolves (1984) — a first foray into horror by future Interview with a Vampire[…]
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