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[…]
How to Hate Titles Correctly: A Pillow Book of Misguided Assertions
What’s in a name 1. The Rumpelstiltskin-God No matter how mightily I strive to intellectualize my living (not my life, my living, you understand), to sieve from it every iota[…]
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[…]
Following the Blind Swordsman: The Zatoichi Movies
“He is an itinerant hero, a lone samurai whose mask is his blindness, a mask that hides his many strengths. I am always looking for new cinematic vistas. New directors,[…]
Suspicious White Powder: Bad Actors in an Age of Bad Equality
Please dispose of all reality at the back of the theatre An emancipated society . . . should rather point to the bad equality of today, the identity of film[…]
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,[…]
Selma: Or the Absence of God
“It is a face that has ‘glimpsed into the abyss’ and never recovered from it.” Note: This essay examines the notion of “serenity” as it appears in section 9 of[…]
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[…]
Falling Angels, Rising People: A Brief Look at Sex-and-Spirituality in Cinema
Wings not desired Simply assuming that human goodness will triumph over its opposite is — as everybody knows — an immature stance. It makes us easy targets for scoundrels of[…]
African American · Essays · Genres · Lists · Movies
Routes to the City: The Ways of the New Black Films
“It’s independent thinking without the protection of an ‘indie’ label.” While hosting the Academy Awards in 2005, Chris Rock made the following claim: black films don’t have real names. “Barbershop?[…]
“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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