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[…]
Austria Hungry: The Return of a Film Nation
Vienna’s Forgotten Influence and New Austrian Film Two unrelated events signaled a kind of poetic caesura in Austrian cinema at its second turn of the century: Austria’s first film star,[…]
Unadaptable: A Fatal Problem with The Human Stain
“Why not sock the audiences early with the ‘fuck her in the ass’ line?” I do not look forward to any book I am reading being turned into a novel.1[…]
Actors & Personalities · Directors · Silents
Blossom in the Dust: Lillian Gish, The Wind, and Mr. Griffith
“I was never young, and if you were never young, how can you ever feel old?” Towards the end of Follow Me, Boys! (1966), a particularly obnoxious piece of Walt[…]
Babies Bubbling Up: David O Russell’s Fertile Perversity Filigrees Flirting with Disaster
“There’s always been an acute mystery attached to the body . . .” Since Flirting with Disaster starts with Patricia Arquette lying in bed for two minutes, we think we[…]
Tentacles No Knives Can Cut: Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale
All in the family, unfortunately Home is the place where, when you have to go there They have to take you in.” “They fuck you up, your mum and dad,[…]
The Last Cockroach: The De- and Rehumanizing of Culture in Cinema
Reasons to be evil An eclectic taste in films can have odd results. Having seen, within days of each other, Hotel Rwanda (Terry George, 2004), and The Wraith (Mike Marvin,[…]
Spirit in the Dark: Barbara Kopple on Filming the Group That Wouldn’t Shut Up & Sing
“Just put your sneakers on and go. Go on the journey.” New York native Barbara Kopple has been a vital and socially progressive voice in documentary filmmaking for the past[…]
On Manderlay: This time “liberal” is a dirty word
“The movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society . . . America must be born again!” — Martin Luther King Jr. 1967 “Dear[…]
SF & Fantasy · Visual Artists · Writers & Critics
Expanding the Possibilities: Peter Chung Talks About Aeon Flux, Matriculated, Dark Fury, and More
“The more you’re able to project your own world upon the work, the more power it has.” Peter Chung is not your average sci-fi figure. First, he cuts a studied[…]
We’re Just Taller Children: On the Dardennes’ L’Enfant
The Belgian humanists’ most Bressonian film to date With Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s latest film, L’Enfant (The Child, 2005), we are on familiar territory: the setting of the brother-directors’ hometown[…]
Buried Alive: On Frederick Wiseman’s Juvenile Court
“The great legal scholar Lenny Bruce once observed that in the halls of justice the only justice is in the halls . . .” The long, astonishing final sequence of[…]
Wim, We Hardly Know Ye: On Wenders’ Don’t Come Knocking
The bad news is . . . there’s not much good news If you’ve despaired at the Wim Wenders of recent years — that long line, since 1987’s Wings of[…]
Anthropomorphizing the Anthropoid: Peter Jackson’s King Kong
Even a big ape can enjoy a sunset, can’t he? 1st Blonde: “What is this thing, anyway?” 2nd Blonde: “Some kind of gorilla.” 1st Blonde: “Ain’t we got enough of[…]
Looking for Angst in All the Wrong Places: Sam Mendes’s Jarhead: Marines Gone Wild!
A few really cute boys take their shirts off, but that’s about it On paper, it must have sounded, well, interesting. Take the flamboyant, left-wing lyricism of Academy Award-winning director[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews · Silents
Step Right Up and Call Me Speedy! Harold Lloyd — Almost All Isn’t Enough
The last of the great silent clowns now on DVD “Step Right Up and Call Me Speedy!” Harold Lloyd has often — too often, really — been called the Anthony[…]
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