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.[…]
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[…]
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