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Crime · Neo-Noir · Writers & Critics
So what the fuck happened? * * * 8 Million Ways to Die is a mess. Not a glorious mess, or an interesting mess. It’s not a fiasco on the[…]
“We’ve avoided saying certain things. Why bring them up now?” – L’Eclisse “Two hearts, four eyes, Crying all day and all night/ Dark eyes, you cry because you can’t be[…]
The film withholds memory and history from us, always knowing more than us, plot-wise, but inviting and compelling our projection of how we fill the space of our own friendships.[…]
It seems a good opportunity to talk about film and nationhood, given that so many of this year’s local films – not only A Family but Alice, Buoyancy, and Animals[…]
Production History · Writers & Critics
In My Man and I, “it seems that America has fallen into decline and the Stones and Nancy Walkers of America need the redemptive power, the cultural revivification offered by[…]
We encounter filmic atmosphere vaguely, imperceptibly, but emotively and reflexively; a movie is a mood. Hereditary and Midsommar creep into our consciousness through subtle shifts in light, sound, and camerawork.[…]
DVD & Blu-ray · Historical & Epic · Reviews
“What do such large loose baggy monsters, with their queer elements of the accidental and the arbitrary, artistically mean?” – Henry James, from the preface of his novel The Tragic[…]
For a variety of reasons, then, despite its high-gloss finish, the film did not achieve any real commercial success. This is not to say it was an artistic letdown, as[…]
These characters speak lines that contain emotion but show none of it themselves, even when they’re the exact same lines as before. And when they’re new, they show no old[…]
Animation · LGBT & Queer · Memoir
As a child, singing the Ariel aahs was synonymous for me with being or becoming Ariel. More than looking like her, dressing like her, acting like her – all of[…]
African American · Cinematographers · Designers · Editors · Interviews
We spent a lot of time going through references for the film as well as scouting iconic locations, but what it came down to was devoting ourselves to creating a[…]
Horror · Interviews · Movies · SF & Fantasy
* * * It’s The Day of the Triffids’ fault: when he was a wee lad stuck at home in front of the television with a sprained arm (fault: sister,[…]
Martyrdom suits Brown’s purpose, and it is in this extremism that he is ultimately un-American. His cause may be morally right but his attempt to impose it is not; the[…]
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Drama · Essays · Romance
QT’s films are commonly hurtling toward darkness, yet Once Upon feels like a repudiation, as much as a culmination, of his oeuvre. There’s a point in the experience where the[…]
Huston, unlike Crane and his readers, had the actual experience of combat before him. What he discovered in Italy validated much of what Crane wrote. Huston, too, would attempt in[…]
This comparison shows Dark Victory to be conservative, and Now, Voyager to be liberal, on the question of how women can achieve lasting satisfaction. Of course, in Dark Victory one[…]
“. . . a jewel with facets of disease running all through it.” – Lester Bangs * * * It was once said that the real heroes of 18th-century writer[…]
As part of their liberation from convention, Corman empowers female characters with choices both real and metaphorical. Even a common love triangle can represent female empowerment, with the choice between[…]
Franchises & Series · Superheroes
This is all to say that Endgame is more interested in fantasy outcomes than solving the problems it gives itself. It promises us a future more bearable than our present[…]
Actors & Personalities · Hollywood
INTRODUCTION Jean Harlow (1911-1937), born Harlean Carpenter, rose to screen fame in the early 1930s playing characters with an unaffected, uninhibited, spontaneous sexuality. [See Figure 1.] Dubbed the “Platinum Blonde”[…]
