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August 3, 2026
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Brazilian Cinema · Horror · Labor
The horror in Hard Work is not that a monster exists; it is that the monster is structural. It resides in architecture, in managerial relations, in aspirational rhetoric, in the[…]
Activist & Political · Class System · Directors · Italian Cinema
Even after the radical shift in register with his collaboration with Massimo Fagioli, everything still holds up: the essence of historical struggle remains the true core of Bellocchio’s cinema, whether[…]
Mystery · Sex & Relationships · Thrillers & Action
In both films, the protagonist’s disorientation becomes a tool for the audience: we are not merely watching two men hunted by secret forces but two men whose consciousnesses have become[…]
Franchises & Series · LGBT & Queer · SF & Fantasy · Superheroes
Queerness and madness can be seen as dangers to the status quo, disruptive states that open up new possibilities. The question then is do you find this disruptiveness beguiling or[…]
Counterculture · Crime · Cult Cinema · Directors · Drama · Satire
Every aspect of his professional life was stage-managed with the same precision he brought to a tracking shot. The results were remarkable. Total artistic control achieved at a young age.[…]
Peckinpah suggests that humans maintain micro‑moralities, politeness, fairness, reciprocity even when they have abandoned macro‑moralities such as justice or compassion. People prefer manageable moral problems, politeness, fairness, loyalty, over unmanageable[…]
Comedy · Comics · Essays · Hollywood · Men & Masculinity · Philosophy · Silents
He isn’t just a clown; he is a deconstructionist who reveals the hollowness of the Hollywood dream. The “pause” – those agonizing seconds where Langdon stands motionless – is far[…]
Activist & Political · Counterculture · Crime · Drama · Urban Conflict · Writers & Critics
For a popular entertainment, One Battle is ultimately hopeful but not pandering. Viewers do not leave the theater with the spoon-fed feel-good reassurances offered by a Rocky or a Star[…]
Christianity · Religion & Spirituality · Scandinavian Cinema
From the austere formalism of Carl Theodor Dreyer, which transforms cinematic language into a vessel for transcendent faith, to the existential torment of Ingmar Bergman’s “silence of God,” the iconoclastic[…]
Crime · Essays · Thrillers & Action
Commando Parker is the Jeanne D’Arc of a morally bankrupt, corrupt, violent, and racist Empire, and she’s gakked-to-the-gills high on the stupidest and shallowest form of identity politics, giddy with[…]
Drama · Essays · Surrealism
Lynch takes the glamorized version of youth (even some of the glamor from his very own ’90s series) often presented on-screen and renders it unrecognizable. Dramatized teenhood usually tries to[…]
Experimental & Underground · India · Production · Religion & Spirituality
People ask me why we chose a single take. Why not shoot normally and then edit nicely? But when a man is waiting for a sign from God, time itself[…]
Colonialism · Drama · Imperialism · Melodrama
Typically recognized for its portrayal of middle-class repression and female depression, the film is also an early eulogy to British empire. The doomed flirtation signals an end to Britain’s love[…]
Drama · Essays · Men & Masculinity · Nature
The myth of the Great White bears numerous meanings, of variable relevance, from the perspective of then and now. Either way, the old Ahab type is unable to triumph, but[…]
Class System · Drama · Hollywood · Melodrama
Before we were townies, we were snobs. * * * Before Hollywood regarded “Bostonian” as a synonym for “townie” – see Mystic River (2003), The Departed (2006), Gone Baby Gone[…]
Colonialism · Drama · Exile and Displacement
Spoiler Warning: This piece discusses all major events in the film. * * * Óliver Laxe’s Sirāt fuses the fear of losing oneself with the trembling topography of the desert;[…]
Animation · Drama · Myth and Archetype · War
We are, each of us, mearcstapas, navigating the borders between lands. Home, in Vinland Saga, extends beyond geopolitics and ancestry. Whenever geographical territories are breached, cultural and personal identities are[…]
Festivals & Awards · Film Culture · Film History · Programmers · Silents
The online program emphasizes this living quality of film history. Each restoration carries its own provenance, its own narrative of survival. * * * October finds audience viewing habits leaning[…]
Cult Cinema · Dreams · Experimental & Underground · Exploitation & Erotica · Gothic · Indies · Sex & Relationships
In Franco’s world, beauty existed only through risk. The rawness, the repetition, the obsessive zooms were not acts of carelessness but of liberation. They were his rebellion against the clean,[…]
Central and South America · Colonialism · Imperialism · Marxism · Politics · Satire
Alex Cox’s Walker (1987) is an instructive example of how to make a film about modern political issues without becoming overly burdened by the present moment. In telling the story[…]
