The Human (Tragi)Comedy: Talking to Arnaud Desplechin
Of Kings and Queen and other subjects I met with Arnaud Desplechin in New York last April before a sneak preview of Kings and Queen at the BAMcinématek in Brooklyn.[…]
Documentaries · LGBT & Queer · Reviews
The Rage from Nowhere? Arthur Dong’s Licensed to Kill Interviews Murderers of Gay Men
“I’m bad, but I’m locked up.” When we think about how society reinforces its laws, we usually think of law enforcement agencies doing what they’re contracted to do in protecting[…]
After Kieślowski: Six Recent Polish Films on DVD
Of Pornography and beyond The recurring release of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s films in various collections attests to more than English speakers’ enduring love of the work of the late master: it[…]
Activist & Political · Documentaries · Experimental & Underground
Crossing the Bridge: Jenni Olson’s The Joy of Life (2005)
Navigating a haunted, and haunting, world In 1994, film historian and programmer Jenni Olson’s friend Mark Finch, a critic who was co-director with Olson of the San Francisco International Lesbian[…]
The Disturbance of the Real: Arnaud Desplechin’s Kings and Queen
How real is the director’s much-vaunted “multilayered depiction of reality”? The question is, does it frighten you more that your congenial neighbor – the one whose house has the hummingbird[…]
Thinking (and Talking) It Through: Arnaud Desplechin and Kings and Queen
“Is there anything more dazzling than the possible?” Sophisticated, high-spirited, and unpredictable, Arnaud Desplechin might be likened to a raffish, Gallic Woody Allen – the comedic aspects and neurotic energy[…]
War of the Worlds: You Win Some, You Lose Some
Steven Spielberg meets Tom Cruise (again), and things get boring (again) Leave it to Steven Spielberg to screw up an alien invasion. El Stevo’s remake of the 1953 George Pal[…]
The Dark Side Inside: Thoughts on Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Anger leads to fear, fear leads to hate, hate leads to suffering … Episode III is here and it’s deep, dark and delightful. It clears up many things that were[…]
Animation · LGBT & Queer · Reviews · TV & Streaming
Bikini Bottom Babylon: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
He’s fun-damental, not fundamentalist! He’s a Candide for the 21st century, facing the everyday predicaments of the human condition with a sunny optimism and unreasonable zest that seem borderline manic,[…]
The Cross and the Ukelele: Seijun Suzuki’s Princess Raccoon
Suzuki blows morning glories “No man should love a raccoon.” Wise words indeed, even if they address a problem few will encounter, but that’s one lesson taught in Seijun Suzuki’s[…]
Documentaries · Music & Musicals · Reviews
Ready to Rumba? Dance Fever Doc Mad Hot Ballroom Busts a Groove
“You start having to wash two times a day and grow hair in weird places.” “I like moving my hips, a lot!” That’s one preteen girl enthusing about the pleasures[…]
Going My Way? The Hitchchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Is Finally on Film
Say “Slartibartfast” fast three times Well, Earth is destroyed, but luckily our guy-next-door, Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman), is best friends with an alien, Ford Prefect (Mos Def), who saves his[…]
Batman Begins: Now with 50% Fewer Nipples!
It’s one step forward, two steps backward as our long national aureoline nightmare refuses to end Were you, like me, drawn as a moth to a flame to attend the[…]
Essays · Experimental & Underground
Isolating Isolationism: Recent INDEX Releases from the Austrian Avant-Garde
As the covert bottom-line interests of capitalist film distribution circumscribe our viewing options as much as overt censorship ever could, we should earnestly applaud the arrival of the new “INDEX”[…]
Performance World: The Truman Show‘s Sociology
The show must go on Never has a movie better fitted a sociological theory than The Truman Show (1999) to the work of Erving Goffman. Best known for Presentation of[…]
Pulp with a Soundtrack: Getting Elmore Leonard on Film
“My sound is the absence of me.” – Elmore Leonard The curious thing about Elmore Leonard is that while his books move fast, the films that capture his tone seem[…]
Superwomen? The Bad-Ass Babes of Sin City – or Are They?
This noir-drenched comic adaptation is retro in more ways than one In the sordid, febrile netherworld of Sin City, the eponymous film re-creation of the comic by Frank Miller, the[…]
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service: Re-Viewing a Bond Masterwork
“We have all the time in the world” A cult audience was [. . .] recruited when the National Film Theatre ran a season of Bond films in 1980. Of[…]
Führerkontakt: The Emerging German Perspective on the Third Reich
“In short, completely normal.” A great deal of how the Third Reich presented itself and how we have come to know it is visual. Early on, the Nazis understood the[…]
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Directors · Silents
Looking at Charlie – the Mutuals: An Occasional Series on the Life and Work of Charlie Chaplin
“Love backed by force, forgiveness sweet, brings hope and peace to Easy Street” “Fulfilling my contract with Mutual was, I suppose, the happiest period of my life.” Charlie Chaplin had[…]
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