“There is only Noir!” The Noir Vision To discuss the history of film noir since the ’50s is to fly in the face of conventional studies, which assume the “genre”[…]
What Time Now? Catching Up Hours in Tsai Ming-liang
What is the best way of placing a body? The opening scenes of The River (1997) are spent trying to make a body move and work in a realistic way. A film[…]
Superman Returns II: Superman . . . Bush . . . Perry White . . . Karl Rove . . .
It’s all here, including the “Mission Accomplished” moment Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns, which was the number one movie in America on its opening weekend in June 2006, is a listless,[…]
Superman Returns I: Superheroes for the New Millennium
“This new millennium hero lives in a fortress of solitary and alienated hyper-masculinity.” Note: This article contains spoilers. I never thought I would see the day when I would write[…]
Steele Vision: The Face of Italian Cult Cinema
“Again the camera shows how the imperfection of Asa’s face does not present an insurmountable obstacle to her being ultimately attractive.” Within cinema scholarship there is a reluctance to address[…]
Less Is Less: The 44th New York Film Festival
Past trumps present in this unremarkable fest If, as proclaimed by its director Richard Peña, the New York Film Festival is a “kind of report on the state of cinema,”[…]
Actors & Personalities · Artists · Directors · Interviews · Movies
What’s Wrong with Fast Food? A Conversation with Richard Linklater and Eric Schlosser on Fast Food Nation
With additional comments by Catalina Sandino Moreno and Ethan Hawke Introduction The distributor’s website describes Richard Linklater’s Fast Food Nation, a dramatic feature based on Eric Schlosser’s best-selling book, as[…]
No Tobacco Juice, but Funny! Monster House, Rockin’ in 3-D!
Bob Zemeckis and Stephen Spielberg want your money. Give it to them. It’s sad but true: no one does spit tobacco juice on the audience in Monster House. But even[…]
Hating Marie: Why the French Still Don’t Like Her
Bring us the head of Sofia Coppola, ‘k? Of all cinema publics, France holds the reputation for the most cinephiles, for being the home of the invention of the “auteur.”[…]
On the Prowl with MadCat: On the 2006 MadCat International Women’s Film Festival
Provocative and visionary! The MadCat Women’s International Film Festival is based in San Francisco, but one hesitates to call it a “San Francisco festival.” Programmed for the past ten years (this September[…]
Artists · Directors · Interviews · Movies · Reviews
Returning to Life: Talking with Almodovar, Penelope Cruz, and Carmen Maura at Cannes
“I do not have the serenity of women. But I admire it.” Pedro Almodovar’s new film Volver (Return) features an unusual number of deaths. Penelope Cruz, in the best performance[…]
Doug McGrath’s Infamous: The Best Truman Capote Movie I’ve Seen All Year!
If you must see only one Truman Capote movie in your life, let it be this one Do I really want to see a movie about Truman Capote leaving Manhattan[…]
The Departed: Crime All the Time
Scorsese gets all Irish on our asses, and it works I admit it. I thought Marty had lost it. I thought he had gone all lazy and cute and Hollywood,[…]
Artists · Interviews · Stars · Writers & Critics
Cruising with Camille: An Interview with Camille Paglia
“Please note that even Margo Channing, threatening a ‘bumpy night’ for her hapless guests, merely fumingly forecasts. It’s a gesture of mind, not body.” Introduction Camille Paglia, the scholar and[…]
Trailer Trash: Dumpster Diving with Jenni Olson
High camp in three minutes or less The idea that bigger is better may play better in the lexicon of size queens than in le cinema contemporaire. Hollywood’s insistence on[…]
Documentaries · Genres · Movies · Reviews
Cultural Equity: On the Documentary Lomax the Songhunter
“Every smallest branch of the human family at one time or another has carved its dreams out of the rock on which it has lived.” – Alan Lomax It was a remarkable[…]
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