A SCANNER DARKLY – Linklater Gets PKD Right
If almost any director or screenwriter other than Richard Linklater had been given the opportunity to make Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly into a movie, I think their immediate[…]
Documentaries · Music & Musicals · Reviews
Leonard Cohen, Ungloomed
A group of rather spectacular performers – Nick Cave, Rufus Wainwright, Anna McGarrigle, Martha Wainwright, Kate McGarrigle and Antony among them — gathered at the Sydney Opera House in 2005[…]
The Lewton-Friedkin-Kubrick Connection
I saw William Friedkin’s Cruising for the first time in 25 years when it played on IFC recently. Having listened to Friedkin’s DVD audio commentary on Val Lewton’s The Leopard[…]
BRICKBATS TO LOS ANGELES TIMES
Last month, the Los Angeles Times Magazine published a cover story concerning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. The story was written by L.A. Times Book Editor, David L. Ulin, and in it,[…]
100 Years Old
Time to get this blog rolling. “Let loose the Kraken!” as Larry Olivier would say. (Clash of the Titans – 1981.) On June 18, 2006, a Father’s Day, Isabella Rossellini’s[…]
“Who Owns This Place?” Clashing Values in Sunset Blvd.
This is one close-up Louis B. Mayer wasn’t ready for There was a time when it seemed that Billy Wilder would live forever. Although he stopped directing films in 1981,[…]
Reunifying Identities: North and South in Contemporary South Korean Cinema
Can cinema do what politicians cannot? A 2003 article in the New York Times observed that movies in South Korea are contributing toward anti-American feelings among young people.((James Brooke, “When[…]
Hands Across the Atlantic: The 9th Annual European Union Film Festival
A Baltic-to-Balkan road trip No passports or visas were needed to check in at the 9th Annual European Union Film Festival, nor did one have to be an actual European[…]
Notes on Naruse: An Auteur Ascends
Pitch-black pessimism, unsparing emotional truths, and women on the verge In the eighties, an impressive full-scale retrospective of Mikio Naruse’s films traveled the world and his reputation in the West[…]
Directors · Exploitation & Erotica · Interviews · LGBT & Queer · Visual Artists
Camping out with James Bidgood: The Auteur of Pink Narcissus Tells All
“I don’t live in a harem either, but well, God, I did for awhile …” Introduction My first viewing of Pink Narcissus (1971) took place in a Gay and Lesbian[…]
Four Films in Search of an Author: Egoyan Since Exotica
Scattered pleasures and frequent irritations As someone who has followed Atom Egoyan’s career closely since his pre-Exotica days, viewing his most recent feature films has been an intensely ambivalent experience.[…]
Actors & Personalities · Books
Kay Francis: Secrets of an Actress: New Books Reveal the “Wavishing” Star
“I’m not a star, I’m a woman, and I want to get fucked!” A combination clotheshorse/workhorse, Kay Francis made 67 films from 1929 to 1946. Her life and career are a splurging[…]
Documentaries · LGBT & Queer · Reviews
Speaking Out: Pioneering Doc Word Is Out Turns 29
Assimilate this Like any marginalized culture, queerdom carries on its own constant internal debate: to separate or assimilate? Separation means embracing the inner pervert, celebrating the diversity in the community[…]
David Lean’s Problem Child: Gorgeous but Flawed Ryan’s Daughter on DVD
For maximum effect, see it when you’re 13 The 1965 epic Doctor Zhivago was a Brobdingnagian success and the highest-grossing film at MGM since Gone with the Wind. Director David[…]
Epic Sweep: On Kurosawa’s Sprawling Red Beard
This one’s got it all, including the kitchen sink Kurosawa’s cinema is large in every sense of the word. He often spent a year or more on preparation, sometimes had[…]
Gene and Judy Go Wild! Thoughts on Minnelli’s The Pirate
The best of the Garland-Kelly collaborations? It seems a shame that Judy Garland and Gene Kelly were afforded only three opportunities to make a film together (musical buffs know that[…]
Directors · Music & Musicals · Producers & Studios · Reviews
The Hip Hooray and Bally Hoo: Busby Berkeley Explodes on DVD
Come and meet those dancing feet, and pianos, and buildings, and . . . Give the nearest Warner Home Video executive a big hug. The company has at last remastered[…]
Great Scott! Herzog Profiles God’s Angry Man
On the madness of Dr. Gene When I was a child and life was simple, one of my favorite forms of entertainment on the dawn of a dreary Sunday morning[…]
Walking the Fine Line: Between Clever and Stupid
“Is that all there was to the Man in Black?” From “The Man in Black,” 1971: Well, there’s a reason for the things that I have on. I wear the[…]
Drive S/He Said: Felicity Huffman in Duncan Tucker’s Transamerica
The odd couple takes it on the road You’ve got to give them credit — Oscar and Felix, I mean. They don’t rest on their laurels. They’re always out there,[…]
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