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October 23, 2020
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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:
Directors · Drama · Interviews
“I try very hard to give the characters in my films a sense of humanity. I want this feeling for the audience that these characters exist outside of the frame.[…]
Drama · Interior Monologue · Letters
(interpolating material by Paul Simon, John Sebastian, Johnny Jewel, Johnny Mercer, Emily Jane Meluch, Conor Oberst, Jaret Ray Reddick, and Eddie Argos) * * * The weight of the world[…]
African American · Horror · Race
As it stands, Suture’s bold attempt at cultural effacement never drives home any type of allegory, just as Clay is only a passenger in a narrative with barely any causal[…]
Essays · Thrillers & Action · Urban Conflict · Women in Film
This essay is a revised version of a book chapter that originally appeared in the anthology Clint Eastwood’s Cinema of Trauma: Essays on PTSD in the Director’s Films, eds., Charles[…]
Drama · Historical & Epic · SF & Fantasy · TV & Streaming
It is a fascinating exercise to consume this show according to the twenty-first-century rules of binge-watching. As the hours pass and the on-screen death count rises, the sustained passivity of[…]
Absurdism · Comedy · Drama · Eastern European · Horror
The Cremator, only Juraj Herz’s second film, was adapted from a novel by Ladislav Fuks. It was well received, won a few awards, and was promptly banned for two decades[…]
Drama · Fashion · Noir · Women in Film
The fact that even if that zipper did come down it would simply reveal more dress, a never-ending vortex of clasps and corsets leading to nowhere, seems precisely what the[…]
Horror · Mystery · SF & Fantasy · Westerns
The Thing and The Hateful Eight’s analogous narratives speak to broader philosophical notions of selfhood and knowledge of others. Their thematic undercurrents explore the forever-complicated terrain of what it means[…]
Drama · Historical & Epic · Women in Film
Where Siegel goes sleazy and conflictual, Coppola goes subtle and sympathetic. Her direction (which won her the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival, making her only the second[…]
“When somebody’s wearing a mask, he’s going to tell the truth. When he’s not wearing a mask, it’s highly unlikely.” – Bob Dylan (while not wearing a mask), Rolling Thunder[…]
We missed World Book Day (March 5) this year, but what the heck. In these challenging times, we celebrate all things literary anyway by re-presenting Paroma Chatterjee’s brilliant take on[…]
Cityscapes · Counterculture · Directors · Drama · Sex & Relationships
“I reckon LA as the noisiest, the smelliest, the most uncomfortable and most uncivilized major city in the United States. In short, a stinking sewer. . . .”1 – Adam[…]
Activist & Political · Asian · Drama · Societal Trends
Hu Bo leaves us suspended over this bleak interregnum – where the old has gone but the new is not yet born. His death too, leaves a similar blank spot.[…]
Designers · Interviews · Production History
It wasn’t always that simple for the shooting unit to improvise with A Hidden Life being a period film, but nevertheless Terry would wander off sets with the actors and[…]
We can further associate the filmmaker, the man with whom we’ve placed our narrative trust, with the “psycho” of both the title and our typical image of one, the latter[…]
Animation · Essays · Women in Film
Author’s note: My primary works cited, in increasingly tangled order, are the 1989 Disney adaptation of The Little Mermaid; Hayao Miyazaki’s 2008 Studio Ghibli film Ponyo; and the ur-terror that[…]
Experimental & Underground · Festivals & Awards
Watching as a FIPRESCI festival juror from Australia, at all hours of night and day, I was overwhelmed by the breadth of the international program, with its dizzying, often undifferentiated,[…]
Activist & Political · Disease and Epidemics · Economy · Horror · Pandemic
What the decade’s scariest film can tell us about pandemics, poverty, and the web of financial risk that ensnares us all * * * It comes for you when you’re[…]
Actors & Personalities · Interviews
Mason was “equally at home playing small, brooding anti-heroes, camping it up in a toga, or doing a nice line in late career self-parody.”
