Book review: Withnail and Us, by Justin Smith
Withnail and Us: Cult Films and Film Cults in British Cinema, by Justin Smith. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2010. Trade paperback, 256pp. $28.00. Guilty pleasures, childhood favorites, secret[…]
Book review: Star, by Peter Biskind
Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America, by Peter Biskind. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010. Hardcover, $30.00. Peter Biskind’s plump new book about the life, loves and career of Warren Beatty, Star:[…]
Book review: From Rajahs and Yogis to Gandhi and Beyond, by Vijaya Mulay
From Rajahs and Yogis to Gandhi and Beyond: Images of India in International Films of the 20th Century, by Vijaya Mulay. London, New York, and Calcutta: Seagull. 2010. Trade paperback. $39.95.[…]
Book review: Asian Horror, by Andy Richards
Asian Horror, by Andy Richards. Harpenden, UK: Kamera Books, 2010. Trade paperback, 160pp, $19.95. Dumplings made from human embryos. A woman cutting off her fingers. Mutilation by fishhook. Intrigued? Keep reading.[…]
City Living: Enter the Void/Biutiful
Biutiful, dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu Enter the Void, dir. Gaspar Noé Cities are hard to pin down on film. For decades, hardly anyone bothered to try. Usually they’re just scenery,[…]
TWO SECONDS to Noirville
Is Two Seconds (Mervyn LeRoy, 1932) the first American noir? I’ve read some historians who trace American film noir as far back as Josef von Sternberg’s Underworld (1927). But Underworld,[…]
Poster Comparison No. 9 – Kaleidoscope Frenzy
Reaching across time, this poster for Gregg Araki’s 2011 film, Ka-Boom, echoes the kaleidoscopic poster design of Daniel Haller’s 1970 psychedelic monster-fest, The Dunwich Horror (screenplay by Curtis Hanson), and[…]
Maria Schneider RIP
If you’re in an empty room with Maria Schneider and she lifts her arms up and starts running around making buzzing sounds, you have two paths open to you:
Boring Psycho? “I’m Never Satisfied with the Ordinary.”
Boredom never looked so good Psycho boring? What blasphemy! Psycho is unusual for many reasons, but in some ways the most important is the mere fact that it is in black-and-white. By[…]
The Optimum Wound Profile: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer as Atrocity Exhibition
“How entertaining do you find this?”
Activist & Political · Directors · Documentaries
On the Level: The Films of Frederick Wiseman
“The wonderful paradox of the Wiseman film is that what allows the layered complexities to unfold is the leveling of everything we are shown.”
A Funny Valentine to Crime: Where Jim Fits a Bill or Two
And Claude Rains.
Miracles and Mysteries: On Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
“Boonmee establishes Weerasethakul as our reigning master of the spiritual style: no one else moves across the lines that separate animals from humans and the living from the dead with greater ease or less fuss.”
Toys and Amateurs: On the Ideology of Games and Killers
“Those denied redemption, obviously, cannot raise the ascending tower, and embrace their brokenness with a furious energy that smiles only in clumsy destruction.”
Festivals & Awards · Lists · Reviews
Ten from 2010: Jacob Mikanowski: Selections from the Chicago and Warsaw International Film Festivals
#7: “A family drama about the dangers of beekeeping.”
Ten from 2010: Erich Kuersten
#7: “A story starring a child is allowed to be bloodcurdlingly violent without softening it with hand-holding guilt or apathetic abstraction.”
Jew or No Jew? David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin tell the story of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook in The Social Network
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The Last American Ruffalo: Lisa Cholodenko’s Lesbian “Homespun” Family Values
“In order to rectify her own misery with judgmental, shrewish wino Annette, Julianne Moore has to suffer the shame of being caught cheating, the way Dick Cheney had to suffer the blame for all the waterboarding we needed to squash terrorism.”
Activist & Political · Essays · New Media
“Gekko Redux, Zuckerberg ‘Rock Star,’ and the President: Players All”: Draft Subtitle
“For the first time, man’s mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being — the self-made man — the American industrialist.” —Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Metropolis, the Reconstructed Original Cut: Does It Make Sense? Does It Need To?
“The resurrection of Fritz Lang’s original cut has revealed how well this film functions with its associative network of image layered onto an adventure/SF thriller, but the reasons for its mysterious pull coalesce into an x-factor that resists analysis.”
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