Crack Christ: The Excess and the Ecstasy of Bad Lieutenant
“Lord, my Lord! How true it is that whoever work for you is paid in troubles.” ~ St. Teresa of Avila Junkies and saints know about giving. After shooting up[…]
Floating Bridges: Caution: Children Crossing
Subtitles for the hard-of-believing One of the strangest facts about film on DVD is that it is not — in the original sense of the word — cinema at all.[…]
The Ballad of Smith & Siegel:First Stanza
There’s always something very dubious about public feuds; spitting contests luminaries get into that play themselves out in a mass media culture hooked on diversion. No matter how vituperative and[…]
UNDERWATER STORY
In the great generic title tradition of Woman In the Window, Girl On the Bridge and Female On the Beach comes M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady In the Water, though she’s[…]
A SCANNER DARKLY II – The Kaufman Version
In 1997, Charlie Kaufman wrote a screenplay adaptation of A Scanner Darkly that was never produced. You can read it here. Surprisingly, Kaufman’s version follows Philip K. Dick’s novel as[…]
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[…]
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