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Studio portrait of Florence Lawrence by Frank C. Bangs, 1908. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Actors & Personalities · Film Technology & History · Silents

3

Florence Lawrence and the Truth Behind “We Nail a Lie” (Famous Ads, 1910)

  • September 12, 2017

Ever since the ad appeared, there have been unanswered questions: who or what was behind the rumors of Florence Lawrence’s death? Did these rumors start because the fans of her[…]

Historical & Epic · LGBT & Queer

0

Before Wilde: Cinematic Portrayals – and the Lack Thereof – of Medieval and Early Modern Queer Historical Figures

  • September 4, 2017

There are two major threads here. In one, the queer figure from history becomes a way to explore the consequences of existing in a society that wars against the individual’s[…]

Bobby Bumps, Surf Rider

Animation · Silents

0

Happy 100th, Bobby Bumps, Surf Rider!

  • August 28, 2017

While it’s always difficult to make such a claim with assurance – for decades Disney’s 1937 Goofy feature Hawaiian Holiday was confidently thought to hold that honor – Bobby Bumps[…]

Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Directors

0

Jerry Lewis: b. Joseph Levitch, Newark, New Jersey, 1926-2017, res. Hollywood

  • August 20, 2017

“The major point of convergence between Cassavetes and the Dogme movement is an oppositional realist form that blurs the boundaries between being and performing.”

Beach

Exploitation & Erotica · Franchises & Series · Producers & Studios

2

Surf’s Up! Beyond the Beach: AIP’s Beach Party Movies

  • August 17, 2017

With summer starting to fade, what better way to while away the hours than by revisiting the beach, as imagined by exploitation studio American International Pictures in the early 1960s?[…]

Dunkirk

Historical & Epic · War

1

Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk: Too Cute!

  • August 8, 2017

A particular issue is the degree to which the film departs from “fact.” Significant departures from the historical record, if they become frequent enough, are sufficient to sabotage any “historical[…]

Historical & Epic · War

0

Machines and Forms of War in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk

  • August 3, 2017

Though some have criticized Nolan’s rigidity and near mathematical precision in tackling a historical event (no doubt provoked by the director’s admittedly frustrating tendency to wax philosophic on his own[…]

War of the Planet of the Apes

Franchises & Series · SF & Fantasy

2

Silence is golden, so it would seem: On War for the Planet of the Apes (Matt Reeves)

  • July 23, 2017

Is it rude to point out that male chimps don’t hug their sons? That’s because they don’t know they have sons! They aren’t “faithful” to their “wives,” which they don’t[…]

Screenshot: Ingrid Bergman in Autumn Sonata

Actors & Personalities · Documentaries

1

Ingrid Bergman In Her Own Words Gets Up Close and Personal

  • July 19, 2017

Ingrid Bergman In Her Own Words makes clear that her life was messy and episodic, but she earned great love from her directors, co-stars, and family. Don’t wait for Mommie[…]

Comedy · Comics · Franchises & Series · SF & Fantasy

1

Watch It Again! Batman: The Movie (1966)

  • July 11, 2017

The recent passing of Adam West – who made Batman his own despite the many higher-profile claimants to the cape – reminds us of the feature film based on the witty TV[…]

Drama · Memoir · Religion & Spirituality · Women in Film

1

 On the Trail and Off the Grid: The Gender of Wild in Wild and Into the Wild

  • July 3, 2017

Both protagonists undertake a kind of “work of the self,” whereby they simultaneously come to terms with trauma – in one case, paternal betrayal, in the other, maternal abandonment by[…]

Wonder Woman

Comics · Franchises & Series · SF & Fantasy · Women in Film

0

Fight Makes Right: Unearned Feminism in Wonder Woman

  • June 28, 2017

Unshackled by the Snyder malaise – and ignoring the slow motion he made a fad with 300, which Jenkins curiously revisits with consistency verging on the fetishistic – Gadot roars.[…]

Tarzan

Activist & Political · African American · Historical & Epic · SF & Fantasy

0

The Legend of Tarzan: A Rich White Man’s Burden, or, Donald in the Jungle

  • June 25, 2017

Several questions suggest themselves. What ideological framework is revealed by the forwarding of a contemporary story in which the white man has lost his mojo and needs to struggle to[…]

The Other

Horror · LGBT & Queer · Writers & Critics

1

Have I Seen the Real World Yet? Thomas Tryon’s The Other (1972)

  • June 19, 2017

One of the few indelible images in director Robert Mulligan’s 1972 film of The Other is that of Niles in the freaks’ tent at the 4th of July fair, gazing[…]

Documentaries · Religion & Spirituality

1

The Native Eye: Re-Embracing the Serpent with “Chullachaqui”

  • June 15, 2017

Ciro Guerra’s Embrace of the Serpent (2016) can be read as a brilliant subversion of the colonising role that the camera plays in appropriating native cultures in favour of Western[…]

Let There Be Light

Activist & Political · Documentaries · War

0

Casualties of the Spirit: Liberating John Huston’s Let There Be Light (1946)

  • June 11, 2017

Naturally, Huston was furious about the film’s suppression and remained so all through the intervening years. In his words, “I think it boils down to the fact that they wanted[…]

Alien: Covenant: David and the protomorph

Franchises & Series · Horror · SF & Fantasy

1

Alien: Covenant: Ridley Scott’s Myth of Creation Science

  • June 8, 2017

The people we care most about in Alien: Covenant are those we most delight in seeing eviscerated. David gives us his own flair for the ghoulish, cultivating with us his garden of monsters[…]

Guardians of the Galaxy Photo courtesy of Disney/Marvel

Animation · Comics · Music & Musicals · SF & Fantasy · TV & Streaming

2

Hooked on a Feeling: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Adventure Time, and the Bonds of Imagination

  • June 5, 2017

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 has infinitely more in common with the psychic quest for one’s identity, the yearning for belonging and friendship, and the no-rules imagination – sometimes[…]

Feminist films: Suffragette

Women in Film

1

Without Permission: Three Contemporary Feminist Films and One Classic (Suffragette, Mustang, Under the Shadow, Woman on the Run)

  • June 2, 2017

The women in these feminist films have power, but they’re more complex than fatale. * * * In the ultra-buoyant realms of badass, the femme fatale is equal to any[…]

Dustin Hoffman: Straw Dogs

Crime · Drama

0

Watch It Again! Straw Dogs (Sam Peckinpah, 1971)             

  • May 31, 2017

Peckinpah’s ethics and form are evinced best in his sixth film, Straw Dogs, where we also discover the key to his aesthetic of violence. David Sumner takes a sabbatical to Yorkshire,[…]

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