A Very Special Favor: More Strange Drag from the Hudson Closet
“Never mind that Hudson was a gay man playing a straight man playing a gay man in love with a man who was really a woman.” Universal Studio, never in[…]
Bright Sights: Recent DVDs: An ongoing column that looks at some of the most intriguing of recent, under-the-radar releases
Night Train (Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1959) Call it Train of Fools. In Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s masterwork, a crowded night express travels overbooked with the despairing, the lovelorn, the lustful, a handful of priests[…]
One Small Step for a Penguin: George Miller’s Happy Feet
Getting down way down under You may not be aware of this yet — few Americans are — but Robin Williams likes black people. He also likes Latinos. And why[…]
Uneasy Lies the Head: Stephen Frears’ The Queen
“Hovering between treason and tribute . . .” Stephen Frears’ film The Queen starts with this quote from Henry V which announces that a whole Shakespearean drama is about to[…]
Casablanca: The Romance of Propaganda
“Casablanca provides twenty-first-century Americans with an oasis of hope in a desert of arbitrary cruelty and senseless violence.” As we approach the sixty-fifth anniversary of Casablanca (1942), it is clear that[…]
Caveh Zahedi’s PSA: Talking with the Auteur of I Am a Sex Addict
“Not only is it personal — it’s downright embarrassing.” Fourteen years in the making and spanning eighteen years, Caveh Zahedi’s I am a Sex Addict, despite a lukewarm reaction upon[…]
An Immovable Feast? Another Look at Henry King’s The Sun Also Rises
“It’s sort of what we have instead of God” “. . . you talk less about good movies than about what you love in bad movies.” — Pauline Kael, Trash,[…]
Artists · Directors · Movies · Reviews
Inherit the Wind: Talking with Peter Bogdanovich and Joseph McBride About The Other Side of the Wind
Life with the restless ghost of Orson Welles’ last movie In 1970, after two decades of European exile broken only by his brief return in 1957-58 to make Touch of[…]
Through the Looking Glass: Thoughts on The Window
Ted Tetzlaff brings Bobby Driscoll to the voyeur’s front window The Window (1949) is the kind of movie probably best experienced as a child of 11 or 12, plagued by[…]
The Reckless Art of Erich von Stroheim Part One: The Pinnacle
“Like every other skilled fabulist on earth there would forever be a part of Stroheim that truly believed his own fantasies.” 1. True Fake Nobleman Somewhere between his departure from[…]
You Only Live Twice? Martin Campbell’s Casino Royale: Bond Rebottled
Forget the book, just see the movie It’s a curious fact that today’s movie franchises are largely based on American comic books and English popular fiction.1 The Harry Potter series,[…]
The Peculiar Kind: The Humor of Funny Ha Ha and Mutual Appreciation
“People are constantly falling back on their beds — but always in languor, never in passion . . .” It’s difficult not to be grateful to a film that introduces you to six or[…]
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[…]
Bright Sights: Recent DVDs An ongoing column that looks at some of the most intriguing of recent, under-the-radar releases
Night Train (Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1959) Call it Train of Fools. In Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s masterwork, a crowded night express travels overbooked with the despairing, the lovelorn, the lustful, a handful of[…]
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[…]
Welcome to the Modern World: Program Notes for a Michelangelo Antonioni- Jack Arnold Film Festival
“As much as the landscape is a character in It Came From Outer Space, it dominates Antonioni’s L’Avventura . . .” The surprising affinities between the careers of Italian “art film” director Michelangelo[…]
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.[…]
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