How Slick Is Too Slick? Jason Reitman’s Thank You for Smoking
A movie only a preppie could love A good preppie cares about three things: good Scotch, good pussy, and a good school for his son. Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) achieves[…]
The Misery and Splendors of Cinema: Godard’s Moments Choisis des Histoire(s) du Cinéma
“Godard 24 times per second” “I need a day to tell the history of a second, a year to tell the history of a minute, a lifetime to tell the[…]
Lonesome Road: Bruckheimer’s Folly
Glory Road? Make that Dead End. The first time I knew race was more of an influence than a seven-foot center was when I went to support the Villanova basketball team[…]
When Portentous Met Pretentious: Rian Johnson’s Brick
“I’ve got all five senses and eight hours’ sleep! Don’t fuck with me!” “The trouble with making movies is that by the time you’re old enough to make them, you[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
When Fred Met Red: Fred Astaire, Red Skelton, and Vera-Ellen Commingle in Three Little Words
It’s Bert and Harry, together again! Why are you not excited? Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby are not names to conjure with, unless you’re excessively fond of conjuring, but back[…]
Festivals & Awards · LGBT & Queer
More Fun in the New (Queer) World: The 2005 Portland Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
Out of the closets and onto the screen Queer film festivals have always been a crucial flashpoint for community. Starting in the 1970s, with the now sprawling San Francisco version,[…]
Mystique Without Camp: The Allure of the Leading Man
Turning “the male gaze” on men It’s true that seeing Rock Hudson surrounded by able-bodied women is fun. In Man’s Favorite Sport? (1964) he’s blocked — trapped in a “stoic”[…]
Game On: The Gold Diggers of Heartbreakers
The screwball comedy’s back, and Weaver’s got it Sex is not a tap, we’re told. Real sensuality is something that flows, right? It’s effortless, and you exude it — you[…]
Actors & Personalities · Genres
Un-Movies: When is a movie not a movie?
All movies have the potential to become a non-movie, particularly when the movie showcases a cause, a disease, a celebrity, an actor’s virtuosity, a play or musical. The movie becomes[…]
Documentaries · Visual Artists
Surreal Women: Leonor Fini and Kay Sage Documentaries
“All there is to do now is scream.” One view of “outsider art” is that it’s often the product of a hyper-productive, typically male naif who’s closer to his own[…]
A Sequel Too Far: The Case of the Multiplying Movie
“A Hollywood Satan is a persistent devil” There is a simple, plain logic to sequels. Capitalize on the prodigious success of the original movie. Sometimes the box office success of[…]
Aural Drag: This Is What It Sounds Like, When Men Cry
Bwaaaaah! There’s a whole new wave of sensitive guy films emerging in the last few years, a wave that finally begins to recede (hopefully) with the stunning failure of Cameron[…]
French & American Beauty: Mid-20th-Century Vistas from Tati to Scorsese
Par avion ad astra * * * If the 1940s was a golden age, most of us born then would probably admit to having blinked and missed it. On the[…]
Men in Love: On Brokeback Mountain
” … I wanted eternal union with a man too: another kind of love,” he said. “I don’t believe it,” she said. “It’s an obscenity, a theory, a perversity.” “Well[…]
Proust Regained: On Raul Ruiz’s Time Regained and Filming the Unfilmable
“In a single bold stroke, Ruiz films the novel according to the play of images, feelings, scents, and tastes that Marcel experiences.” 1. An attempt to film Proust’s Remembrance of[…]
A History of Violence: A Minimum of Thought
“A whole load of ‘Aw’ with not a lot of ‘shucks,’ updated only by a little cunnilingus.” If David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence were an actor, it would be[…]
Auteur in Distress: On Wallace Beery, von Sternberg, and Sergeant Madden
Cinema’s supreme pictorialist surrenders to “the cop on the beat” Wallace Beery was always a strange case. An outstanding character actor throughout the silent era and the early sound period,[…]
What the Sound Is Saying: How Music Moves in Bertolucci
“Who doesn’t want to be rescued by their narrator?” Sometimes a film’s camera takes you on one track, while its music sends you on another, wider one: it offers you[…]
Everyone Has Something to Hide: On Cronenberg’s A History of Violence
Unmasking (the) America(n) Two of the largest influences on postwar American life were the virtual invention of the teenager and self-help. Something for nothing underlies the idea behind each development.[…]
Ann-Margret in Wonderland: But Bates and the Brits Are at Home in The Return of the Soldier
“Her English accent wanders around her mouth like a playful ice cube.” Have pity on The Return of the Soldier. Shot in England in 1982, the film did not get[…]
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