“Who Wants to Be Cured of Desire?” Anthony Page’s TV Movie My Zinc Bed (2008)
“Don’t we most of all resent the person who helps?” — Victor Quinn
Category: Reviews
Satirical Excess and Empty Vessels: Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy
“Rupert Pupkin is uniquely a product of late capitalism near the close of the twentieth century; his fantasies reflect mass media’s ability to twist the real world into an insubstantial collection of images that mimic reality — the representation of self becomes more than the actual self, and it becomes impossible to tell the difference.”
Michael Curtiz, Part 2 – Weird Scenes Inside the Wax Museum
The directorial personality of Michael Curtiz remains elusive, but his visual talent is indisputable. Look closely at the lighting and composition of these images from Mystery of the Wax Museum[…]
Michael Curtiz – Auteur Without a Theme?
Hungarian-born filmmaker, Michael Curtiz (pictured with Joan Crawford, above), is considered by many to be one of the quintessential Hollywood directors – he is, after all, the man who[…]
Enjoyed Inglourious Basterds? You’re Doing It Wrong!
“Aldo Raine is nothing more than Adolf Hitler wrapped in an American flag.”
From La Fille to Dr. Cordelier: Character and Environment in the (Mostly) Early Works of Jean Renoir
“Renoir’s static images contain a great deal of emotional intensity — like that last lyrical shot of the sun setting in La Fille — and the sheer beauty of his two-dimensional compositions generates an emotional in volvement within the viewer (like that in the viewer of a painting) and a sense of emotional treatment of the romantic material within the frame, yet preserves an awareness of the existence of a larger world beyond the borders of the frame.”
Father of His Country: On Spielberg’s Lincoln
“Spielberg’s post-millennial Lincoln epitomizes the more experienced politician’s awe for Justice (as distinguished from the malleable Law), which is to be sought by whatever means necessary and inevitably involves sacrifice, perhaps of one’s very soul. There’s more than a touch of Faust in this script.”
Ozymandias Melancholia: Woody Allen’s To Rome with Love: A Personal History
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed . . . — from Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias”
More Than Just Another Day Underground: Anthony Asquith’s First Feature Gets the Deluxe Treatment
“It is a much starker contrast than, say, in Hitchcock’s London films of the same period, where the humorous grace notes of the urban everyday and a happy ending are balanced throughout by a recognition of the inherent instability and all-out terror of the same modernity that produces those grace notes.”
Hidden Within Ourselves: A Psychoanalytic Examination of the Effects of Repression in Michael Haneke’s Caché
“Caché lays bare a heavy psychological truth about the collective unconscious — without submitting to another perspective, we may not be able to recognize and acknowledge the abject parts of our own selves, even when they are clearly presented to us, hidden in plain sight.”
What Else Is Lost with Memory Loss? Memory and Identity in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d.— Alexander Pope (As quoted by Mary [Kirsten Dunst])
The Body Fights Back: Night of Silence and Recent Turkish Cinema
“The bride is like a child who has found herself in a new body overnight. Different parts of her have been stained red, white, and gold; she bears all the carnal colors and signs — but what to do with them?”
Small Stakes, Small World: Technology and Skyfall
The James Bond series is ostensibly about a jet-setting spy drinking martinis with beautiful women and saving the world. Skyfall, the newest entry in the 007 franchise, is certainly glamorous[…]
Father of His Country: Spielberg’s Lincoln
Great drama often depends on the playwright’s ability to select (or invent) a fateful day or two in his hero’s life that symbolically sums him up and enables him to[…]
WALTZES FROM VIENNA (Alfred Hitchcock 1934)
Notwithstanding the absence of spy plots, murders, or homicidal maniacs, WALTZES FROM VIENNA is very much a film by Alfred Hitchcock. It was co-scripted by his wife, Alma Reville. It displays[…]
Noir · Reviews · SF & Fantasy
Technocratic Totalitarianism: One-Dimensional Thought in Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville
“The truth of art lies in its power to break the monopoly of established reality to define what is real.” — Herbert Marcuse
Activist & Political · Documentaries · Reviews
18 Days and the “Montage of History”: The People of the Egyptian Revolution
“We become faced with the individuality and humanity of history, the functioning components of a movement. 18 Days translates this reality of individual experience to film, in a sense presenting the audience with 10 YouTube clips of people affected by the revolution, telling their stories.”
Actors & Personalities · Reviews · Westerns
Carl Foreman’s and Fred Zinneman’s High Noon: Kelly versus Jurado! The Ultimate Face-Off!
O to be torn, ‘twixt love and duty
Straight arrow? Not Exactly. Jennifer Lawrence in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games
Why do lesbians have to be so boring?
Pushing Limits: On Crime, Bollywood, and Kahaani
“Kahaani captures this moment of rising disillusionment and change in the world. There is no ‘riding-into-the-sunset’ happy ending, for Vidya still remains an unhappy widow at the close of the movie: perhaps an appropriate resolution for these angsty times.”
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