Katherine Heigl: Infantilization’s Poster Girl
Third wave feminism was bad enough with its “I’m a princess who should be spoiled rotten and pampered AND treated with full equality to men” cake and eating it[…]
Lost – On the Wave
This is apropos the DVD release of Lost Season 6: A lot of people were disappointed with the series finale of Lost, disappointed to the point they felt it betrayed[…]
Comic Side Duo Steps Up in The Social Network
There’s certainly various elements uniting in this confident film. Individually, they don’t seem like much, but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Just when Oliver Stone[…]
Dishonored
Dishonored Dir. Josef von Sternberg, 1931 Marlene Dietrich and Mata Hari: it sounds so obvious once you say it. It didn’t take long for Josef von Sternberg, to put the[…]
Stanley Kubrick’s Fear and Desire (1953)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKZhzpBl5g4] For years, Stanley Kubrick’s independently financed first feature, Fear and Desire, was a suppressed film, next-to-impossible to see. The man responsible for suppressing it was Kubrick himself, because he[…]
Catfish: A New Medium for a Motif
Note: this review discusses major plot points but doesn’t reveal the surprising turn. Much of what is discussed below can be found in the promotional material. Catfish opens in Philadelphia[…]
“In Northwest China, You’re on Your Own”: A Woman, a Gun, and a Noodle Shop
Cora: Yeah, but where are we headed? Frank: What’s the difference? Anywhere. –The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1946 The key to the shifty enterprise of adapting a work like the[…]
The Late Claude Chabrol – Some Personal Favorites
There was something so damned likeable about Claude Chabrol (June 24,1930 – September 12, 2010). He had a remarkable enthusiasm for films and the process of filmmaking which translated into[…]
Exploitation & Erotica · Reviews
“Machete doesn’t text.”
by RUTH STARKMAN This definitive statement comes from Machete, an ex-Federale played by veteran tough guy, Danny Trejo in the deliciously extreme action gore-fest Machete, which opens nationwide Friday, September[…]
Five Shameless Sci-Fi Oscar Robberies, Spearheaded By Avatar
Riding on the back of nine minutes of unseen footage, the special edition of James Cameron’s pioneering 3-D masterpiece Avatar returns to theaters today (Friday August 27). But billions of[…]
As Above, So Below – World on a Wire and The Thirteenth Floor
A MATRIX OF CONNECTIONS For a long time, I avoided watching The Thirteenth Floor (above) due to the name Roland Emmerich in the credits. Emmerich was responsible in one way[…]
Book review: Let Me Tell You How I Really Feel . . . , by Laura Wagner
Let Me Tell You How I Really Feel . . . The Uncensored Book Reviews of Classic Images’ Laura Wagner, 2001-2010, by Laura Wagner. Trade paperback, 252pp. 2010. $19.95. Bear Manor[…]
Book review: Errol Flynn, by Lincoln Hurst
Errol Flynn: The True Adventures of a Real-Life Rogue, by Lincoln Hurst. Hardcover, $35.00. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2010. ISBN 0-81-08639-9. In contemporary clothes, he looked like anyone else, albeit[…]
Book review: Scandinavian Blue, by Jack Stevenson
Scandinavian Blue: The Erotic Cinema of Sweden and Denmark in the 1960s and 1970s, by Jack Stevenson. Trade paperback, 304pp. $49.95. 2010. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Oh for the glory days when[…]
Book review: Film Noir: The Encyclopedia, edited by Alain Silver, Elizabeth Ward etc.
Film Noir: The Encyclopedia, 4th edition; edited by Alain Silver, Elizabeth Ward, James Ursini, and Robert Porfirio. Hardcover. $49.95. New York: Overlook Duckworth, 2010. ISBN 1-59020-144-2. The consensus is clear:[…]
Just Enough of Eat Pray Love
The first time I saw the memoir’s title, I couldn’t escape the association: the concept of “pray” following “eat” was made famous by the late quip-master, Rodney Dangerfield. The line[…]
The More I See of Marion Cotillard
the more I am fascinated by her. Loved her in Mann’s Public Enemies and as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose. I was even impressed by her Vanity Fair[…]
Happy Birthday, Robert Siodmak (And Sorry for all the Misconceptions)
Director Robert Siodmak was born on August 8, 1900, in Dresden, Germany. If alive today, he would be 110. In 1994, in an article entitled Beyond the Golden[…]
Russia, Godard, Frankenstein – Era New Horizons 2010
I recently got back from a few days at the Era New Horizons Film Festival in Wrocaw. When I was there, most of the excitement centered on Xavier Beauvois’ Of[…]
The Real Villain of John Ford’s STAGECOACH (1939)
STAGECOACH (1939) directed by John Ford from a screenplay by Dudley Nichols is generally considered to be the first adult Western – adult in the sense that it took a set of archetypes[…]
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