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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:
Courtroom Drama · Drama · Exile and Displacement · Myth and Archetype
“They’re not monsters. They’re just tired.” – Ada, Atlantics (2019) “I placed her in the sea so that the sea. . . .” – Laurence, Saint Omer (2022) * *[…]
Depicted as perfect boyfriends, they model an ideal set of standards for a desirable heterosexual male romantic partner while using those standards not to pursue their own self-interests but rather[…]
Artificial Intelligence (AI) · Experimental & Underground
Director/author’s statement: My film Recorded as Stated by Me (V. Shashkov, 2024), released on Amazon Prime at the end of April 2025, is set in post-mobilization Russia and traces cultural[…]
African American · Asian · Drama · Essays
Both films will give the critic searching for a standard class-focused reading a headache. We have to admit that the kidnapper exerts an imposition on the success of “the other.”[…]
Activist & Political · Brazilian Cinema · Communism and Socialism · Drama · Politics
Retornarán los libros, las canciones que quemaron las manos asesinas. Renacerá mi pueblo de su ruina y pagarán su culpa los traidores. The books will return, the songs burned by[…]
Class System · Crime · Hollywood · Noir · Pre-Code
When the Production Code loosened and America lurched through assassinations, riots, and televised body bags, the gangster stopped functioning as a moral lesson and started reading as a symptom –[…]
Drama · Drugs · Melodrama · Men & Masculinity
Due to cortisone overdose, Ed turns into a radical enforcer of outdated values at school. His expectations, rather than aligning with the conventional disciplinary regime of the time, deviate into[…]
These Fists Break Bricks: How Kung Fu Movies Swept America and Changed the World, by Grady Hendrix and Chris Poggiali. Revised and expanded paperback edition, Running Press, 2025, 384 pages,[…]
In Tár, Field fashions an improbable representation of power (Hernández, “Top Orchestras”) to advance the idea that power is faceless. But the idea is only to be believed if the[…]
Drama · Restorations · Satire
Who is this minx with the thirty-kilowatt smile? Christie is phenomenal here, creating an archetype of the modern neurotic. The extraordinary geometry of her face, depending on angle and lights,[…]
Activist & Political · Directors · Italian Cinema · LGBT & Queer
Pasolini is in the canon – but only as a statue, not a voice. His name appears in film textbooks, his films screen at retrospectives, and Salò gets trotted out[…]
Absurdism · Body Horror · Disease and Epidemics · Family · Horror · Politics
When taken as a whole, it’s apparent that Hooper was just as politically minded in the creation of this film as he was with the first, his sights set firmly[…]
Class System · Drama · Exile and Displacement · French Cinema · Road Movies · Women in Film
For the Dardenne brothers, “social conditions” come down to the common denominator of cold cash – having it, lacking it, getting it, some disposing of it more than others. It’s[…]
Drama · Essays · Feminism · French Cinema · Men & Masculinity · Sex & Relationships · Women in Film
Last Tango in Paris is a case study in how a culture processes shame – who bears it, who survives it, who escapes it entirely. Maria Schneider, long ignored, is[…]
In the screenplay for Past Lives, Song’s scene descriptions are acutely sensitive to the way in which identity lives in the distance between self and Other, between knowing and mystery.[…]
Books · Drama · Indies · Women in Film
Alexandra Seros, Ida Lupino, Forgotten Auteur: From Film Noir to the Director’s Chair. Texas University Press, 2024. 227 pages. $45.00. * * * Most readers of this journal recognize Ida[…]
Censorship · Feminism · Gender · Iranian Cinema · Middle East · Muslims · Politics · Revolution · Women in Film
The woman without a hijab in her private space, something consistently denied visual existence, is no longer hidden or censored. Instead, her presence is centered and made ordinary. In this[…]
DVD & Blu-ray · Essays · Societal Trends
When you turn a political object into a collectible, you’re no longer confronting it – you’re displaying it. You’re posing with the thing that once asked you to change. *[…]
Drama · Interior Monologue · LGBT & Queer · Men & Masculinity
The song continues to play as the camera moves farther and farther away from the spooning lovers and higher and higher into the night sky that cradles them. Having proceeded[…]
