Two Ends Without a Middle: On David Lynch’s Kitsch
David Lynch died on January 15, 2025 at age 78. We celebrate this important auteur with the following analysis of some of the less remarked Lynchian themes and his work[…]
Aging · Class System · Drama · Hollywood
The Right Picture: Leo McCarey’s Make Way for Tomorrow, the So-Called Most Depressing Movie of All Time
We are grateful that Bark and Lucy and what they represent are able to exist. That such people have gone before, even if it meant going before in a work[…]
Historical & Epic · Politics · Religion & Spirituality · Satire · Sex & Relationships
Horny Abbess, Empty Relic, Open Fortress, Public Toilet: Reconnecting with Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971)
Russell’s principal avatar in this film is Louis XIII, the Carnival King and Lord of Misrule. Devoted to ersatz relics and to his “tacky stage farce,” he quietly uncovers not[…]
AI · Asian · Philosophy · Revolution · SF & Fantasy
The Ignition of Species Being: A Marxian Reading of The Wandering Earth 2
ABSTRACT Marx’s idea of species being is the recognition by humans that their work is carried out for the sake of other humans (rather than for any god or ruler).[…]
Drama · LGBT & Queer · Romance
Boy Meets Boy: Young Hearts Ushers In a New Era of Queer Cinema
Elias does not label his sexuality, simply telling his mother: “I’m in love with Alexander.” That neither Elias nor Alexander labels his sexuality serves the film well. It is an[…]
Activist & Political · Counterculture · Drama · Exploitation & Erotica · Indies · LGBT & Queer · Neo-Noir · New Genres · Noir · Road Movies · Sex & Relationships
Queer Is the New Noir: How Femme, Love Lies Bleeding, and Drive Away Dolls Queer Up the Genre
Though several deliciously sordid queer noirs have made their way into the cultural fabric of the past decades (Mulholland Dr. [2001], Stranger By The Lake [2013], The Handmaiden [2016]), 2024[…]
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Directors · Drama
A Fresh Face in the Crowd: Judy Holliday in George Cukor’s The Marrying Kind
“A true artist” Cukor called Judy Holliday. “She could interpret a text with the subtlest detail.” Their creative relationship brought out the qualities that made her a new kind of[…]
Crime · LGBT & Queer · Men & Masculinity · Sex & Relationships
Cruising: The Boys in (Black and) Blue
“I don’t make a film because I’m against something. For that matter, I don’t make a film because I’m for something — don’t make propaganda. If anything, all the films[…]
Essays · Movies · Philosophy
Sacred Time, Profane Screen: The Persistence of Mystical Contemplation in Cinema
Before any immediate plot, the viewer is invited to experience time, allowing images to speak before words, establishing a dialogue between the contemplative time on the screen and the subjective[…]
Found Footage · Horror · Indies · Uncategorized
Twelve Angles on the Found Success of Found Footage: The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity
If all horror is a revelation of subterranean fears and anxieties, the found-footage subgenre uses techniques of amateur documentary filmmaking to place you in a lateral reality and then dig[…]
Book Review: SHEMP! The Biography of the Three Stooges’ Shemp Howard, the Face of Film Comedy
SHEMP! The Biography of the Three Stooges’ Shemp Howard, the Face of Film Comedy, by Burt Kearns. Applause Books, 2024, 280pp. $32.95 On March 11, 1895, a masterclass in American[…]
Drama · DVD & Blu-ray · Melodrama · Silents
Of Sexual Hate and Lonely Death: Pandora’s Box on Criterion
When what you write about is what you see/What do you write about when it’s dark? ~ Charles Wright “You’ll have to kill me to get rid of me.” Criterion’s[…]
Actors & Personalities · Drama · Horror · Memorial · Mystery · Thrillers & Action
Chaotic Coherence: Revisiting Don’t Look Now (1973) in the Wake of Sutherland’s Death
In Don’t Look Now, so much of this atmosphere hinges on the film’s unique style, one that often gets in the way of smooth narrative communication and clearly defined characters.[…]
Body Horror · Cults · Feminism · Horror · Satire
Original vs. Remake: Feminism in The Stepford Wives, 1975/2004
The lead actress of the 1975 film, Katherine Ross, later stated that she herself would rewrite this ending to have Joanna “fight harder”– a sentiment that the 2004 adaptation seems[…]
Biopic · Business · Men & Masculinity · Sports
Rust and Bone: Michael Mann’s Ferrari (2023)
If Ferrari is arguably Mann’s most flawed protagonist, he is also one of his most tragic – fully sold to a system that requires him to develop an almost inhuman[…]
If You Can See It: Elvis, Scorsese, and Will Mossop
It’s in Hobson’s Choice that De Banzie and Mills effect one of the warmest and most real accounts of love and marriage ever put on film. Of many effortlessly achieved[…]
Perfect Tuesdays: How Wim Wenders Taught Me It’s Wrong to Watch Movies on a Weekday Morning
Keiko reveals two traumatic truths, both in the form of questions to Hirayama, that cause us to fundamentally rethink our perceptions, namely (1) do you ever intend on visiting our[…]
Nature · New Genres · New Media
Larger Than Life: Postcard from Earth Offers a Happy Vision of the Future as Long as Humans Leave the Planet
You could take encouragement in the fact Aronofsky is making movies with hopeful messages like PFE instead of films that end with newborn babies being eaten, but you might just[…]
Crime · Franchises & Series · Horror
Hidden Horrors: Jeepers Creepers
Perhaps for some, knowing the real-life context heightens the film’s effect. Or it irreparably takes the viewer out of the experience. In either case, the Creeper is, in fact, a[…]
Drama · Exile and Displacement · Neorealism · Refugees
Borders Without Doctors: Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border
Green Border soars and stumbles because it overreaches in its gravitas and humanity, lingering a little too long and stretching a moment out of shape like all great neorealist films[…]
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