Man in the Dark: On David Fincher’s Zodiac
“A brutal, slick game” Zodiac probably is more of a critic’s picture than an audience picture. Since it is about an actual serial killer — Zodiac, who terrorized Northern California[…]
Digitizing the Cold War: Olympic Wish Fulfillment in Tron
“The blue Tron team delivers the red team the drubbing the Americans were never able to deliver the Soviets . . .” In 1980 the American Olympic ice hockey team, comprised mostly[…]
Lost World: Michael Haneke’s Time of the Wolf Reconsidered
What we’re given is a sense that the structures of our civilisation have broken down . . .” Code Unknown (Code inconnu: Récit incomplet de divers voyages, 2000), The Piano[…]
Will Ferrell on Ice! Speck & Gordon’s Blades of Glory
No Betty White, but funny! Blades of Glory is a winning, genial take on some of the grosser vanities and shortcomings of early 21st century America — most notably, the[…]
Moanin’ Low: On Craig Brewer’s Black Snake Moan
Stick to the trailer If you’ve seen the trailer to Black Snake Moan, stop while you’re ahead. Those two minutes of Samuel L. Jackson’s self-righteousness and Christina Ricci’s writhing make[…]
On the Border of the Thermian Gulf: The Ninth Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival
“The documentaries that most stood out have a near fictional flair, blurring the border between reality and fable.” For the ninth year, the formerly predominantly Jewish city of Thessaloniki in[…]
Anorexic Logic: On American Psycho
“Nothing evokes the end of the world more than a man running straight ahead on a beach … cocooned in the solitary sacrifice of his energy … In a sense,[…]
Sovereign Remedies: Queen of Hearts to President
A Progress Boccaccio’s Decameron, written immediately after the Black Death, hints at the arrival of a more egalitarian post-pandemic world. This was especially evident in the new approach to gender[…]
Of Sexual Hate and Lonely Death: The Mysteries of Pandora’s Box
“When what you write about is what you see/ What do you write about when it’s dark?” ~ Charles Wright 1. “You’ll have to kill me to get rid of[…]
Isn’t It Romantic? Hugh and Drew in Marc Lawrence’s Music and Lyrics
The King of the Backseat Blowjob gets mildly post-ironist on your ass You can do anything if you try. You must always be yourself, and never compromise. And it’s OK[…]
Fear of Fishing: Closets and Product Placement in Hawks’ Man’s Favorite Sport?
“The sorrows of narrative immersion are the joys of Brechtian postmodernism …” I love the films of Howard Hawks but I’ve always dismissed Man’s Favorite Sport as unwatchable, mainly because[…]
DVD & Blu-ray · TV & Streaming
Tight Pants in Paradise: Tom Selleck Is Magnum, P.I.
Keats, Shelley, and firm, manly thighs Ever wonder what life would be like if English majors ruled the world? A chilling prospect, to be sure, but a damned unlikely one.[…]
Bright Sights: Recent DVDs: Mouchette, Siberiade, 1900, The Oyster Princess, I Don’t Want to Be a Man, King Lear, Another Sky
An ongoing column that looks at some of the most intriguing of recent, under-the-radar releases Mouchette (Robert Bresson, 1967) Robert Bresson’s film, Mouchette, like his previous release, Au Hasard Balthasar[…]
Being John, Seeing Stanley: John Malkovich in Brian Cook’s Colour Me Kubrick: A True … ish Story
“Plot keywords: drugs, glamour, party, rent boy, sex, bisexual, celebrity, con artist, male model” Say, who’s that old queen in the corner? Why, it’s John Malkovich, having a fairy good[…]
Documentaries · Genres · Movies · Reviews
Treed by the Family: On 51 Birch Street
For boomers, “the idea that Mom and Dad are flawed human beings with complicated histories and real feelings can be hard to accept.” The straight out of a first-grade primer[…]
Our Time of Troubles: Ken Loach on War, Irish History, and The Wind That Shakes the Barley
“But I was accused of enjoying walking up and down the red carpet! Their rage knew no bounds.” Now 70, British director Ken Loach has for over 40 years made intimate, compelling,[…]
Uneasy Living: The Insecure Charm of Jean Arthur
“Funny, tender, a little neurotic, a little erotic, and always spontaneous …” A Foreign Affair (1948) is a blunt Billy Wilder comedy set amid the ruins of Berlin, and it’s[…]
No Exit: On Matthias Glasner’s The Free Will
“It’s a critique that is one step away from excusing Theo (the ‘woman was asking for it’ defence) …” Matthias Glasner’s The Free Will (Der freie Wille,1 2006) is a[…]
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