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June 4, 2026
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Blogging Pound’s The Cantos: Canto LXII – gordsellar.com on:
The Esteemed Black Actresses Who Finally Have the Spotlight – The New York Times – Celebrity News on:
African American · Directors · Producers & Studios
For many black auteurs seeking distribution, working around the system has proven as rewarding – and necessary – as working within it Since the popularity and commercial success of films[…]
Close Up: Iranian Cinema Past Present and Future, by Hamid Dabashi. Trade paper. New York: Verso Books. Cloth: $70.00. Trade paper: $20.00. 2001, 320pp. ISBN 1-85984-332-8 In 1995, introducing one[…]
“It’s Only a Movie!”: Films and Critics in American Culture, by Raymond J. Haberski Jr. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Cloth. $27.50. 2001. 264pp. ISBN 0-8131-2193-0 “It’s Only a Movie!” was[…]
This movie master is still busy after all these years Few artists in the history of the medium have mastered their craft so well as has filmmaker Robert Wise. The[…]
The longest episode of foreplay in cinema history? Pierre Louys’ novel The Woman and the Puppet, first published in 1898, has been a popular source for cinema, with at least[…]
The Criterion Collection offers another scrumptious golden-era DVD Criterion has spruced up the peerless 1936 Universal comedy My Man Godfrey and given it a bright new sheen. The digital transfer[…]
LGBT & Queer · Reviews · SF & Fantasy
Pretty boys in danger: How yummy! Poor Frodo Baggins! He spends almost all his time in The Fellowship of the Ring 1) anticipating penetration; 2) suffering penetration; or 3) recovering[…]
Peter Jackson’s adaptation of Tolkien’s classic soars despite its flaws There’s a very obvious problem when transferring any book to the big screen, namely that some of us may already[…]
Asian · Essays · Exploitation & Erotica · Reviews
Feminism adrift in a sea of ogling orientalism, global capitalism, and fatalist aesthetics INTRODUCTION Chinese Women’s Issues Under the Polar Aesthetics of Female Suffering and Mulan-ism Since the 1919 May[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
“See that girl? Her ass is a song.” How horny were we back in the fifties? Horny enough to put on a raincoat, leave our happy suburban homes, drive downtown[…]
The fest’s focus on New Argentine cinema is especially timely in light of the country’s dire economic situation “This new generation [of Argentine filmmakers] has found a more authentic way[…]
Despite the American juggernaut, Germany and its neighbors continue to make good regional cinema So much of American culture, but particularly the movies, has been shaped over the decades by[…]
“It’s so twenty-first century!” Was it coincidence that at least five festival films featured insistent cell-phone ringing onscreen, mocking transgressors in the audience? Actually, such acoustic violations were not a[…]
Reviews · Silents · Thrillers & Action
Please pay attention to the madmen behind the curtain “You have no existence except as my tool. The individual has no being except insofar as he is part of a[…]
Actors & Personalities · Music & Musicals · Reviews
Nice work if you can get it When Fred & Ginger went splitsville after Shall We Dance, Astaire decided that he didn’t really need a dame, an idea that tends[…]
Asian · LGBT & Queer · Reviews
The DVDs of these two rare gay pink films could use some extras and better source prints, but at least they’re here! Sluggishly but steadily, one segment of once-inaccessible Asian[…]
Check out these two favorites from Czech cinema’s Age of Camelot Those who fondly remember grainy, popping, and cloudy prints of old foreign films will be happy to know that[…]
These cinematic dogs get a pat on the head before being given the boot When Ealing comedy, the cinematic brand that uniquely embodied 20 years of idiosyncratically “charming” English humour,[…]
Despite the enduring lure of Gerard Depardieu in a frock coat, inventive French auteurs are reviving the low-budget genre. One of the key films of the French New Wave, Jean-Luc[…]
Directors · Essays · Producers & Studios · Reviews
Opening the Eyes Wide Shut censorship battles for a close look A recent viewing of Eyes Wide Shut (1999) on HBO reminded me when, three summers ago, I had counted[…]
