The Valorized Artist: Incorporation into the “Perpetual Art Machine” [PAM]
Art for [PAM]’s sake The “Perpetual Art machine” [PAM] is a new media project begun in 2005 that presents the work of a large number of video artists as pieces[…]
An Infarction to Die For: Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Thirteen
Can a film with George Clooney, Matt Damon, and Brad Pitt be all bad? Yes. Future generations will study Steven Soderbergh’s latest, Ocean’s Thirteen. Not future film scholars, of course,[…]
Stay Well, or Else . . . Michael Moore’s Sicko
“What these Americans have could happen to us. And this is frightening.” Michael Moore’s Sicko begins with clips of what happens to Americans who don’t have health insurance. A man[…]
Constructive Empathy: Speaking About Magnus, Cannes 2007
“People can die without love.” The boy is unloved. Magnus has the dead expression of depression as he walks around his Estonian town, stopping in on his selfish vulgar mother,[…]
Blow the Man Down: Aki Kaurismaki’s Lights in the Dusk
“The grafting on of the film’s film noir plot has a reductionist minimalism to it, as if Kaurismaki were sketching an archetype . . .” Aki Kaurismaki offers Lights in the Dusk[…]
Auspicious Beginnings: Nicholson’s Leitmotif in Five Easy Pieces
“His characters have tended to be more bewildered by life and disgusted by a world that won’t cooperate.” As Jack Nicholson turns 70 (April 2007), he embodies more than ever[…]
Mo’ Money, Mo’ Money, Mo’ Money! J. K. Rowling Just Got Richer
Harry the Fifth comes in third OK, the latest Harry Potter — Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, to give the full name — isn’t a bad flick[…]
Notes on a Scandal: On Film Criticism and Its Teachers
Will the twain ever meet? Why isn’t film criticism taught by film critics in British universities? Or to put it another way; why have we never heard of those who[…]
What the Previews Tell Me
Since cutting off my cable I’ve managed to avoid 99% of the crap advertising I used to be subject to. Now I just have to soak up the subliminal messages[…]
The Peak of American Cinema? Leo McCarey’s Duck Soup (1933)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P9_0JEje8k] I’ve been thinking a lot about director Leo McCarey lately and, in particular, how so many of his movies , from the 1928 Laurel and Hardy short Two Tars[…]
The Simpsons Movie: from D’oh to Dough! Helping white men get richer for 18 years!
Yes, Matt Groening and James L. Brooks are rich, rich white men, and thanks to The Simpsons Movie, they’re going to be even richer. Much as I would like to[…]
Herzog’s Tricky Rescue Dawn
Most critics have approached Werner Herzog’s latest film Rescue Dawn with qualifying kid gloves, as if it would be impolite to question a late work from such a grand old[…]
Classic Hong Kong Action Cinema, you are Avenged!
Fans of Hong Kong action cinema have long had to wade through murky, treacherous terrain, even with the arrival of DVD: bad transfers, faded, junky prints, badly cropped pan&scan;[…]
Kill Hagen! – Lang’s Kriemhild And Her Revenge
A 5-hour epic film in two parts about a bride who swears vengeance on the conspirators who killed her husband. That’s Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill. It’s also an accurate description[…]
Uncategorized · Visual Artists
The Gorey Factor
Some still dispute whether Edward Gorey (1925-2000) was fundamentally an artist who wrote, or a writer who drew. Gorey was, in fact, both an accomplished writer and an accomplished artist[…]
Political Premonition in La Cinema
My shrink today was talking about how amphetamines gave Phillip K. Dick both paranoia and second sight, and maybe they tie into each other on some far out dimension. That[…]
A 40 year old escapist rewinds to the UHF past.
The question one hears leaving the movie theater these days, assuming everyone enjoyed it is: Are you gonna buy it when it comes out on DVD?” Or you hear–or even[…]
In Like Clint! Letters from Iwo Jima Is Excellent
With one, yeah, pretty major caveat I do have a major objection to Clint Eastwood’s new film Letters from Iwo Jima, but my first reaction is one of praise. After[…]
Artists · Directors · Producers & Studios · Reviews
Nearer My Corman to Thee: Roger Corman Remembers, and Roger Corman Remembered
Give us another naked nurse and some more explosions! Roger Corman, who turned 81 in April 2007, has assured his place in the history books several times over. As fast[…]
Uncovering the Romantic Bond: Thoughts on Casino Royale
“By describing a conscience for James Bond the character, the story has provided a subconscious for James Bond the movies“ What do James Bond movies and American Football have in common? Well, for[…]
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