Pinned on Both Sides: No Escape for Paul Muni’s Fugitive
“The film suggests the denial of the common worker, whose service to industry is only as worthy as his social status.”
The New French New Wave? Sex and Horror in the Modern Arthouse
“The explicit nature of this wave of filmmaking can be interpreted as a riposte to modern cultural sensibilities.”
Inimitable Charm: Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox
“Anderson, like Dahl, seems to have told a story to appeal to a child’s inner adult.”
Actors & Personalities · Photo Essays
Don’t It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue? What Really Separates Ben and Matt
Hand me those contacts!
Crime · Silents · Thrillers & Action
The Power of Pulp: Madness, Mayhem, and Relevance from Dr. Mabuse to Miss Mend
“The shadow of Mabuse falls over the 1926 Soviet adventure serial Miss Mend, too, but without the angst and gloom of Lang’s Der Spieler.”
Actors & Personalities · Experimental & Underground · LGBT & Queer
Monster Queen: The Transgressive Body of Divine in Pink Flamingos
“Divine is as unstoppable as nature, destined to repeatedly transgress, destroy, and create.”
David Niven: “P. G. Wodehouse with Tears”
“What you got was what you saw, a man with a soldier’s training speaking ever so nicely and trying not to stretch himself beyond his abilities as an actor.” ~ David Niven
Serious Joke: The Coen Brothers’ Emergence as Jewish Humorists
“The films of the Coen brothers seem to take place in a postmodern Chelm, displaced chronologically and geographically.”
Towards a New Cinema of Castration: I Spit on Your Grave and Only Angels Have Wings
“Peer pressure is either a boon or a bitch with the power to destroy the world, or save it.”
Bright Sights: Recent DVDs: Blood, Monsoon Wedding, The Exiles, The General, Sunrise, 8-1/2, Death in the Garden
An ongoing column that looks at some of the most intriguing of recent, under-the-radar releases
Actors & Personalities · Music & Musicals
Fred Astaire, Two Steps Forward and One Step Back: Fred and Vera-Ellen, Not Quite Walking on Air in The Belle of New York
Can quantity trump quality? Not so much
Old Cameron’s Avatar: America’s Favorite Asshole Makes Another Kick-ass Thriller
Vampires? Yeah, we’ve got that. Oh, and Michelangelo too
The Greenest Green World: James Cameron’s Avatar
“Cameron is Hollywood’s dream boy: a superficial auteur with impeccable brand recognition.”
Tina Fey’s 30 Rock: At Last! A Cult TV Sitcom for the Tragically Self-Involved
You’ll come for the irony, you’ll stay for the tits
Who are Parents? Parents are the ones who are ALWAYS there
I’ve written a lot about the decline of the “Father” in genre film–from tough WW2 vet to tough but loving 70s hedonist to needy, emasculated single dad of the 21st[…]
Some Cameroning, Part 2 – Cameron as Auteur
Can a filmmaker spend most of his or her artistic life recycling other people’s ideas and still be a true auteur? Sure. Why not? Any idea, theme, style, or attitude[…]
Good night, Mr. Tikhonov, wherever you are…
Vyacheslav Tikhonov, who starred as Prince Andrei Bolkonsky in Sergei Bondarchuk’s War and Peace (1967), died last Friday (12/4) at the age of 81. Tikhonov is one of a trio[…]
Book review: In My Father’s Shadow, by Chris Welles Feder
In My Father’s Shadow: A Daughter Remembers Orson Welles, by Chris Welles Feder. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Algonquin Books, 2009. Hardcover. $24.95. 304pp. ISBN 978-1565125995. Orson Welles, as Walter Kerr wrote[…]
Book review: Farber on Film, Ed. by Robert Polito
Farber on Film: The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber, Edited by Robert Polito. USA: The Library of America, 2009. Hardcover, $40.00. 1,000pp. ISBN: 978-1598530506. Farber on Film The dizzying creativity[…]
Book review: America’s Film Vault, by Phillip W. Stewart
America’s Film Vault: A Reference Guide to the Motion Pictures Held by the U.S. National Archives, by Phillip W. Stewart. Crestview FL: PMS Press, 2009. Trade paperback, $39.95. 308pp. ISBN: 0-979-32430-0.[…]
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