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Drama · LGBT & Queer · SF & Fantasy
As in romance novels, the excitement of sexual provocation is the heart of the story. It occupies two-thirds of the film: “His finger brushed mine” developed in fifteen stages. The[…]
Note: One of our favorite actresses, Margaret Sullavan, was born on May 16, 1909, which means she’d be 111 if she’d lived. Not that she’d necessarily have wanted to, as[…]
Franchises & Series · SF & Fantasy
One might argue that Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi attempts at deconstruction yet again, depicting the original trilogy’s heroic Luke as an inexplicably jaded Jedi living in self-imposed exile on[…]
Comics · Franchises & Series · SF & Fantasy
So as you peel back the folds of the opening of Batman v Superman you get the sense that even in its immediately awkward, tone-deaf plotting, this is not a perfectly[…]
Biopic · Directors · Drama · Experimental & Underground
“Hollywood oddballs are like everything else in Hollywood. Don’t look too close.” * * * Greg Sestero’s now reasonably famous book The Disaster Artist, co-written by Tom Bissell, is much[…]
Activist & Political · Historical & Epic · LGBT & Queer
Ironically, with the passing of the Singapore of yesteryear, the work that best captures the significant geographical landmarks lost to time is not a local film or documentary, but a[…]
“I’m a girl who loves to be manhandled! After all, what are a few contusions or abrasions if you get the man you love?”
When it comes to design, I always try to get into the heads of the characters and then I try to map out the history of the location itself. Who[…]
Crime · Franchises & Series · Philosophy · TV & Streaming
As Jonah Weiner puts it, the final scene “does stage a violent death, patently and unambiguously: ours.” If the cut-to-black is punitive, it’s also Chase’s memento mori: remember that you[…]
The notion of the body as entry to the soul becomes a fallacy: penetration is not a portal to another person’s psyche – just as Sagawa’s cannibalism of Hartevelt could[…]
Historical & Epic · Horror · Women in Film
The Witch is about what is in woman that is presumed not to exist, because it cannot be seen. * * * Robert Altman’s 3 Women is mostly a high-kitsch[…]
Drama · Philosophy · SF & Fantasy
“I was the shadow of the waxwing slain By the false azure in the window pane. I was the smudge of ashen fluff – and I Lived on, flew on,[…]
Horror · Philosophy · Religion & Spirituality
We will go back to our old gods again. – Goethe * * * My eyes. My eyes. I’m seeing again. Across a gulf of how-many years, the light is[…]
Alan Vanneman goes to the Met – the Metropolitan Opera, that is. The Met was looking for a film critic who likes opera to review Thomas Adès operatic version of[…]
Actors & Personalities · Drama · DVD & Blu-ray · Silents
What we see in Brooks and Beery on the screen is a mixup of the actors’ hardwired personalities and those contrived for their roles, but this is the sort of[…]
Wonderstruck seems a retreat from some of Haynes’ established themes, in that it’s not set in the fifties and, as a PG-rated, child-oriented adventure film, instead pursues the marvelous and[…]
Haynes spares us slack-jawed bug-eyed Spielbergian reactions shots, but he also denies us deep emotional engagement. The visuals shadow and overwhelm the actors as they wander the bustling Haynes-Selznick landscapes.[…]
Drama · Essays · Uncategorized
Isn’t something less reassuring and a lot more interesting going on – something more inclusive, diverse, and genuinely universal? * * * There are still too many human beings on[…]
The beautiful grime in Blade Runner challenges you to find humanity in the mechanism of our future, humanity which Scott omits. So we search the frigid replicants for their ghosts,[…]
Directors · Documentaries · Experimental & Underground
Davies – who can be described as a cultural conservative but never a simple nostalgist – wears his affection for his forgotten eras on his sleeve, generally eschewing close-ups in[…]
