Activist & Political · Documentaries · Essays
Corn-Fed Culture: Living Large and “Eating Shit” in King Corn and Fast Food Nation
“The films analyzed here explore the (crude) question: what are the individual and social consequences of eating shit?”
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Silents
Forgotten Charleys II: Charley Chase: Mr. Normal Unleashes His Comic Demon
“He could be suave or awkward, likable or pesky, average or eccentric, a winner or a loser, a fussy nerd or the life of the party, all the while remaining Charley Chase.”
Actors & Personalities · Comedy
Forgotten Charleys I: Charley Bowers: Silent Comedy’s Wizard of the Bizarre
“He is Aladdin and the camera is his lamp.” — James R. Quirk
Cary Grant: Prince of Denmark
“If we take Grant seriously, we must contend with an extreme difficulty: what appears to be fake, an actor portraying a character, might be real; what we normally think of as real, a person gesturing in the everyday world, might well be artificial.”
Bright Sights: Recent DVDs: Lola Montès, City Girl, The Constance Talmadge Collection, The Norma Talmadge Collection, Black Snow, Permissive, The Italian Straw Hat
An ongoing column that looks at some of the most intriguing of recent, under-the-radar releases
Bigger Than Life: Nicholas Ray in the Life of the Gray Flannel Darkness
“Art, entertainment, and genuine fear and tragedy rarely all filter down into a deceptively ‘normal American family film’ with such quiet desperation.”
Animation · Essays · SF & Fantasy
Living Backward: The Millennials’ Alice
“We are but older children, dear, Who fret to find our bedtime near.” — Lewis Carroll, “Child of the Pure Unclouded Brow”
Early 3D: A Case Study: The Teleview and The Man from M.A.R.S.
“Less than a month after premiering for an ‘indefinite time’ at the Selwyn, the Teleview was pulled.”
Repo Men on DVD
Could any film hit closer to our cultural amygdalae than Repo Men? Millions of people have seen the “American Dream” crumble before them during the Great Recession and can’t help[…]
Well-adapted: Anton Chekhov’s The Duel
In this nimble version of Anton Chekhov’s eponymous short story, aristocrat Ivan Laevsky (Andrew Scott), and his married mistress Nadya (Fiona Glascott) have decamped from Moscow to the Black Sea.[…]
An Exit Through the Boundaries of Documentary
“Functionless art is simply tolerated vandalism.” – Peter Steele (1962-2010) From here comes a rich smell drawn from a load of bullshit. And in no way am I demeaning the practice of street art by[…]
Bigger Than Life’s Sci-Fi Twin
No one with eyes and a brain could seriously dispute Nicholas Ray’s role as the primary auteur of Bigger Than Life. All you need to do is watch Ray’s Rebel[…]
Look of Love: The Secret in Their Eyes
Recently retired law clerk Benjamin Esposito (Ricardo DarÃn) can’t shake the memory of the 1974 Morales rape and murder case. Never mind that 25 years have passed: for Benjamin, the[…]
Girlies and Spider Babies living down the Lane
This spring, I’m all about homicidal nymphets, and wouldn’t you know it, so is Stacie Ponder at Final Girl, who’s hosting a big SPIDER BABY event at her Final Girl[…]
The Pervert’s Guide to The Birds: Of Hitchcock, Žižek, the Maternal Superego, and Critical Confusion
“It is the search for explanation itself and the experience of the alien, disturbing, and frightening that thrills audiences.” In The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, directed and produced by Sophie Fiennes,[…]
Hot Tube Time Machine – Fun, but Repeating on Itself
When asked about the John Hughes films in a recent NY Times interview, John Cusack played the highbrow card. Besides Sixteen Candles, in which he had a minor role, Cusack[…]
Eastern European Animation Dept. – Renaissance (Walerian Borowczyk, 1963)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAirHKywhSc”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAirHKywhSc] I think this is one of the greatest short films ever made. Containing not a word of spoken dialogue. Not only is the stop motion animation exquisite and amusing,[…]
New Directors / New Films 2010
The unpredictable, occasionally thrilling New Directors / New Films fest opens in New York City today. Locals are, of course, the immediate beneficiaries of this annual collaboration between the Film[…]
Valentine’s Day: It Sucks Being a Woman
“Traditional gender roles seem to be in no danger of evolving.” Simone de Beauvoir laid it out in The Second Sex: “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman.” Indeed,[…]
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