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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:
Essays · Feminism · Women in Film · Work and Workplace
Sarah is a good astronaut because she is a mother, not in spite of it. And she is a good mother because she is a good astronaut. If Sarah were[…]
Counterculture · Music & Musicals · Noir
In noir, tales of wrongful accusation tend to play out on mean streets that reflect social inequalities, which at times do have a nasty way of tilting normally upright people[…]
Books · Theory · Work and Workplace
Salomé Aguilera Skvirsky, The Process Genre: Cinema and the Aesthetic of Labor. 2020. Duke University Press, $28.95. Watching someone work is hypnotizing. We might not always enjoy working, but something[…]
Genres · Horror · Producers & Studios
Producer Val Lewton died on this day (March 14) in 1951, age 46. We honor this visionary talent by reposting this profile of Lewton by frequent BLFJ contributor Mark Vieira,[…]
Drama · Reviews · Thrillers & Action
Ocean’s Twelve finds itself the black sheep of the trio, inspiring bewilderment and even scorn for its lax attitude toward typical genre beats and for its gutsy meta gambit, which[…]
“What makes The Big Lebowski seem so circuitous is that, in moving from A to B to C, the plot keeps dawdling at points of interest along the way, stopping to admire the scenery before picking up and moving on. That’s essentially what Quintana and Brandt and Da Fino are: local color. It’s a movie about the pleasure of the journey, not the arrival at the destination.”
Digital · Movie Theatres · New Media · TV & Streaming
Like it or not, we humans are social creatures. We ride waves of communal feeling all the time. If you like sports, consider sitting in the stands with thousands of[…]
Today, February 24, is Twin Peaks Day, the day Special Agent Dale Cooper came to the titular town to investigate the murder of Laura Palmer. Apropos that, we’re reposting Matthew[…]
Comedy · Literature and Film · Theory · Writers & Critics
The oblique reference to Poe by means of the double POE acronyms, then, can be seen as linking the fundamental prophecy of Dr. Strangelove with the much earlier secular prophecies[…]
Directors · Theory · Writers & Critics
One of Assayas’s most ferocious articles he ever wrote (and also one of the most theoretical) attacks le cinéma publicitaire – a film aesthetic (associated in France with Jean-Jacques Beineix[…]
Biopic · Drama · Gothic · Mystery · Myth and Archetype · Psychology
“The opus begins in dying.” – James Hillman “Just as each Gothic tale is itself a dream and also a mirror showing the reader his mind, everything within these symbolic[…]
Activist & Political · Pandemic · SF & Fantasy
I can’t believe it took me almost four decades and living through a global pandemic to realize it, but in E.T., Elliott and his motley crew of rascals might well[…]
Costume Drama · Drama · Horror · Literature and Film · Women in Film
In transposing Rebecca, notice how Hitchcock’s camera attends to shadows – bisecting faces and bruising frames – to approximate du Maurier’s disorienting syntax and looming dread. Or watch as his[…]
Animation · Counterculture · Cyberpunk · Digital · Essays · New Genres
In refusing to be neither something different nor more of the same, Back to the Future II’s re-filming technique within the original via new VistaGlide technology offered – rather –[…]
Amelia has cultivated a fearful respect of Mr. Babadook. She is in control of him and feeds him worms from her garden. Instead of trying to exorcise the demon, she[…]
” In between the idealized lover and the cantankerous old goat lay a handful of roles in which Howard managed to simultaneously embody and undermine the archetypal Englishman.”
Directors · Documentaries · Experimental & Underground · Exploitation & Erotica · Memoir · Outsiders
As much as there remains some graspable appeal to each man’s video work – George’s comic personality and the humorous reckoning with his own legacy, and Carl’s peculiar brand of[…]
“It’s not difficult for me to hide emotion, since I’ve always hidden it in my personal life.”
Actors & Personalities · Asian
The next step for a Hollywood that is coming to see the true potential of Dev Patel’s abilities is to let him shine in his own right, and in his[…]
Activist & Political · Animals · Drama
Although Babe was released a quarter-century ago, its critique of animal agriculture remains timely. Babe celebrates the “unprejudiced heart” of its eponymous piggy hero, who narrowly escapes becoming Christmas dinner[…]
