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
Welcome to the Ranks of the Disenchanted: Feminism and Pacifist Spectacle in The Gauntlet
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
A Song of Ire: Game of Thrones, A Year Later
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 (1969): In Love with Death
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
“Put the Blame on Mame”: Fragmentation and Commodification in Gilda
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 Self as Other: Unknown Identities in John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) and Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight (2015)
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
The Natural Deconstruction of Entrapment: The Beguiled
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[…]
Weird American Odysseys: Music, Authenticity, and the Coen Brothers
“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[…]
A Tale of Two Bookshops: Sex and Books and The Big Sleep
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
Jacques Demy’s Model Shop (1969): The “Baroque Geometry” of Los Angeles in the 1960s
“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
Melting into Air: The Late Hu Bo and the (Enduring) Sixth Generation
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
Talking with Production Designer Sebastian Krawinkel about Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life
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[…]
Psycho as Comedy: The Joke’s on Everyone
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
Girls Just Wanna Be Fish: The Little Mermaid and Curious Young Women
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
Rose Is a Rose: The 2020 International Short Film Festival Oberhausen
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
“Don’t Let It Touch You”: Watching It Follows in the Age of Coronavirus
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
Happy Birthday, James Mason (b. 5/15/1909): Odd Man Out
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.”
Horror · Philosophy · SF & Fantasy
The Thing about The Thing and Some Other Things
It’s your thing, do what you wanna do, I can’t tell you who to sock it to. – Isley Brothers What in the thing is thingly? What is the thing[…]
Drama · Melodrama · Pre-Code · Romance · War
Love Stories in Harrowing Times: On Waterloo Bridge (1931) and Little Man, What Now? (1934)
James Whale’s Waterloo Bridge (1931) and Frank Borzage’s Little Man, What Now? (1934) depict human possibility in terms of what can transpire between two ordinary people, while holding out little[…]
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