The Horror of a Nation’s Despair: Rob Zombie’s 31 (2016)
Much like the serial-killer-themed amusement park ride in House of 1000 Corpses, 31 is a fast and hyper-sensory excursion into a nation’s sickest and bleakest fixations. * * * Rob[…]
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith: George Lucas’s Greatest Artistic Statement?
Never one to divide “high” art from “low,” Lucas draws from every available well of visual representation to craft this uniquely digital genre entertainment, a film that is broadly drawn[…]
Directors · Drama · Interviews
“What Remains When You Die”: Nanni Moretti Talks About My Mother (Mia Madre) (2015)
Editor’s note: This is the second director interview by our correspondent Amir Ganjavie, this one conducted at the 2015 Toronto Film Festival. The film discussed, My Mother, is being released in the U.S.[…]
M. Night Shyamalan’s Terror Trilogy: Signs (2002), The Village (2004), and The Happening (2008)
Shyamalan’s three films portray an imbalanced and endangered world; they engage to varying degrees with the imagery and anxiety surrounding terrorist attacks in the wake of September 11, 2001, while[…]
Any Husband of Yours: Spellbound and 13 Minutes
Dreams and Pistol Shots * * * From Leslie Halliwell to David Thomson, capsule reviews of Hitchcock’s Spellbound have made sure we know that the psychiatry on offer is pure[…]
Activist & Political · Essays · SF & Fantasy
Blood Will Tell: The Purge: Election Year (2016)
To be a popular film, which is the intent of the Purge series, is to play into what an audience loves; and in the case of something it is not[…]
Happy Birthday to Cinema’s Great Bad Boy: Peter O’Toole (8/2/32-12/14-13)
“Arriving in Los Angeles for the film’s premiere there, he quickly blotted his copybook by hurling a drink at the producer Sam Spiegel, the most powerful man in Hollywood at the time. Spiegel had ‘massacred’ Lawrence, O’Toole remarked, by cutting twenty minutes of it in order ‘to sell more fucking ice cream to the punters.'”
Originality Is Overrated: Ghostbusters (1984) and Its Remake (2016)
The new Ghostbusters seems quite pleased with itself, but it leaves the overwhelming impression that nobody involved really believed in it. Despite the original film’s numerous flaws and Bill Murray’s[…]
Drama · Essays · Writers & Critics
Innocence on the Open Market: Cormac McCarthy, The Counselor, and Artistic Agency
Today (July 20) is Cormac McCarthy’s birthday. He’s 83. We send birthday wishes his way by reposting Sophia Nguyen’s persuasive discussion of McCarthy and the book/film of The Counselor, which[…]
Sharing the Yoke: The Female-Animal Bond in Au Hasard Balthazar and White God
The common theme of these films is the peculiar connection between women and animals, and their shared devaluation in a hierarchical, male-dominated structure. It is, after all, not a coincidence[…]
Activist & Political · Drama · Essays · War · Writers & Critics
The Deer Hunter Debate: Artistic License and Vietnam War Remembrance
The response to The Deer Hunter amounted to a serious public debate over the Vietnam War that extended beyond film critics to engage a wide range of viewers. It wasn’t[…]
Book Review: Into the Dark: The Hidden World of Film Noir, 1941-1950, by Mark A. Vieira
The box office and critical reaction to many of these film noirs varied wildly and widely, especially with viewers in the middle of the country. “The picture is too long[…]
Old Anxieties, New Bodies: Demystifying Masculinity in Brad Anderson’s The Machinist (2004)
It is this very concept of challenging traditional models and exposing not viscera but inconsistencies within societal constructs that makes The Machinist arguably one of the most horrifying films ever[…]
“That’s Actually Kind of Funny. It’s So Stupid”: Irony and Nostalgia in Alex Ross Perry’s The Color Wheel (2011)
The Color Wheel has been criticized in some circles for having an improvisatory and unfocused structure, yet all the film’s major thematic concerns are explicitly introduced in its compact pre-credit[…]
Under the Sign of 39: The Case of the Curious Coincidence from Hitchcock to Antonioni and Beyond
In movieland, there is also the kind of coincidence where someone indeed has planned it, someone acting from behind the scene, manipulating appearances. In this case, a coincidence is a[…]
Happy Birthday, Dark Angel: Notes on R. W. Fassbinder (born May 31, 1945)
The homely, jowly face, dictatorial blatherings, and ragged leather chaps masked one of the great makers of modern cinema Few filmmakers lived their private lives more publicly than Rainer Werner[…]
Designers · Historical & Epic · Horror
Dressing The Witch: An Interview with Costume Designer Linda Muir
The Witch thrives on its damning details. It seems authentically claustrophobic and austere. Threats to faith take their toll. The untouched surroundings and natural lighting allow each period detail revelrous[…]
Actors & Personalities · Exploitation & Erotica · Interviews
Happy Birthday, Pam Grier: Interview with the Accidental Action Heroine
It’s time again to tip our hat to Pam Grier, who’s 67 today (born May 26, 1949), by reposting Steve Ryfle’s interview. Here the incomparable star of Foxy Brown and[…]
Women in Love: Three Early ’30s Melodramas by John M. Stahl (Seed, Back Street, Only Yesterday)
The subtle beauty of John M. Stahl’s early ’30s work is revealed by the exquisite 35mm prints screening at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in the series Universal Pictures: Restorations and[…]
The Road to Hell: Three Early Films of Edward L. Cahn (Law and Order, Afraid to Talk, Laughter in Hell)
Among Cahn’s champions is Dave Kehr, a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, who has programmed a four-week series (running through Wednesday, June 15) devoted to his tenure at[…]
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