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.[…]
Book review: Performing Illusions, by Dan North
Performing Illusions: Cinema, Special Effects and the Virtual Actor,by Dan North. London: Wallflower, 2008. Paperback $28.00, 224pp. ISBN: 978-1-905674-43-4. “Our ability to manufacture fraud now exceeds our ability to detect[…]
Tortured Longing is the new coke
I can feel the Twilight zeitgeist in the air tonight, perhaps it’s because I live across from the cinema and the line around the block and I hear them out[…]
Brothers in Cynicism
Every time a new film by the Coen brothers comes out, I dread having to hear from the same old so-and-so’s who can’t bear to slog through the Coens’ peculiar[…]
Activist & Political · Directors · Interviews
Just Say Oui: An Interview with the Yes Men
“I’m shitting bricks, thinking he’s onto me.”
Activist & Political · Reviews
“They Come in Peace”: Andy Fickman’s Race to Witch Mountain
“Only saviors can save polluted planets, yellow cab drivers are losers . . .”
Of Perfect Plans and Acts of Creation: Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing
“His plan mirrors Johnny’s, that is, pieces of the plan are known to one person: Johnny and Stanley; and not until the end do we see most of their pieces come into place.
Activist & Political · Reviews · War
How James Stewart Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb: Anthony Mann’s Strategic Air Command
“Chew popcorn to avoid grinding teeth, comrades.”
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