The Burden of Dreams: Gianni Amelio’s The Way We Laughed
The rise and fall of two brothers in postwar Italy The winner of Venice’s Golden Lion, The Way We Laughed is the regret-filled story of two Sicilian brothers in Turin[…]
Fred and Ginger: Together Again, yet Not Quite Carefree
“Colorblind,” and maybe just a little bit tone-deaf Breaking up is hard to do. But getting back together, well, that’s even harder. After the semi-failure of Shall We Dance in[…]
Activist & Political · LGBT & Queer
All Is Fair in Love and War Videos: GLBT Men and Women in the Military
Don’t ask, don’t tell, but do watch “If they took all the gays and lesbians out of the military there wouldn’t be enough people left to defend Rhode Island!” —[…]
Asian · Essays · Exploitation & Erotica · Reviews
The Japanese Pink Film: Tandem, The Bedroom, and The Dream of Garuda on DVD
All jargon and no authenticity? Of the vast numbers of corporate-made genre films that flooded Japanin the 1970s, Donald Richie once remarked that the “West knows nothing of these pictures,[…]
Activist & Political · Reviews
The Clinton Syndrome, or the Survival Legacy: Wag the Dog
Revisiting the failure of Wag the Dog and other, more troubling failures “And the public, by and large, seems willing to live with the fact that the most powerful man in the[…]
African American · Directors · Producers & Studios
Independent Black Filmmakers Take on Hollywood: The Distribution of Black Films
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[…]
Book review: Close Up, by Hamid Dabashi
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[…]
Book review: “It’s Only a Movie!”, by Raymond J. Haberski Jr
“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[…]
“Sure I’ll Do It”: An Interview with Robert Wise
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[…]
Luis Buñuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire on DVD
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[…]
Gregory La Cava’s My Man Godfrey on DVD
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
Queer for the Rings: Frodo and Sam Find Fellowship
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[…]
Mastering Middle Earth: Fellowship of the Ring
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
Better Beauty Through Technology: Chinese Transnational Feminism and the Cinema of Suffering
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
Brigitte Bardot on DVD: Plucking the Daisy; The Night Heaven Fell; and . . . And God Created Woman Offer Vintage Titillation
“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[…]
Uncertainty and Change: The 42nd Thessaloniki International Film Festival 2001
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[…]
San Francisco’s Berlin and Beyond Festival 2002
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[…]
37th Chicago International Film Festival (2001)
“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
The Diabolical Dr. Mabuse on DVD: The Crimes of Dr. Mabuse; The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse; The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
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
Fred Astaire Goes Solo in Damsel in Distress
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[…]
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