“Do You Find Me Sadistic?” Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds
“This is the World War II film confronting its Jungian shadow, acknowledging its darkest impulses and finally purging them.”
Reviews · Thrillers & Action · War
Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds: Film Kills
“Tarantino thus concedes some of his omnipotence to the medium he so deftly manipulates.”
Activist & Political · Crime · Historical & Epic · Reviews
The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover: Larry Cohen’s The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover
How a movie exposé of “abuse of power” defends those in power and their institutions
Can’t Repeat the Past? Of Course You Can’t – and Shouldn’t
Filming The Great Gatsby in the 21st Century
From Air Dolls to the Anchorage: The 2009 Vancouver International Film Festival
“VIFF remains the unspoiled oasis for cinephiles looking to get away from it all.”
Festivals & Awards · LGBT & Queer
Lucky 13: The 2009 Portland Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
Getting out of the ghetto
Bucking the Tide: The 2009 New York Film Festival
This year’s strong, idiosyncratic line-up reminds us that moviegoing can still be more than “a museum experience”
After the Surge: The 2009 Melbourne International Film Festival
“An alternative agenda for the festival might be: what can we make of modernism?”
The Dead Things We Already Are: Pod People, Body Snatching, and the Horrors of Business as Usual
“We keep returning to this story about pod people because we’re terrified of the continuing erosion of our physicality in the postmodern era.”
Porno to the People: The Danish Revolution That Liberated America
“Tease was out, honesty was in.”
Essays · LGBT & Queer · Writers & Critics
Contagious Homosexuality: Cruising and Sodom and Gomorrah
“In both Sodom and Gomorrah and Cruising, homosexuality – and its alternate currents – is caught with a glance.”
Sean Connery: A “Natural Thruster”
“Connery, never a martyr to false modesty, remains as voluble and combative as ever.”
Books · Essays · Uncategorized · Writers & Critics
On the Escarpment, Off the Escarpment: It Helps When the Love Is Strong
Especially when the lovers aren’t
Bright Sights: Recent DVDs: Play Time, Gaumont Treasures, Diary for My Children, Winstanley, Marlene, Bill Douglas Trilogy
An ongoing column that looks at some of the most intriguing of recent, under-the-radar releases
Blake Edwards vs. Hollywood: Sunset and the Myth of Hollywood’s Golden Age
A tour of Edwards’ curious 1988 film, with side trips to variations by James Ivory, John Schlesinger, and others
An Atheist’s Guide to “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
When you believe in things you don’t understand, you suffer. – Stevie Wonder * * * In 1949 Walt Disney Studios produced the last, and arguably the best, of their[…]
The Beautiful and the Darned: Avenging TWILIGHT
It’s massively popular, it’s ridiculously mopey, yet it’s also brooding, purple and relatively un-headache-inducing… in short, it’s everything you hate and love about Seattle if you ever tried to move[…]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JACK ARNOLD (October 14, 1916 – March 17, 1992)
Photo: Director Jack Arnold (right) shows star Grant Williams how to handle a giant prop used in the making of The Incredible Shrinking Man. If director Jack Arnold were alive[…]
Music & Musicals · Reviews · TV & Streaming
The Marienbad Music Video
So many music videos and television commercials have ripped off the imagery of Alain Resnais’s Last Year at Marienbad since its 1961 release that it makes perfect sense for someone[…]
Set my Polack free!
An apt cinematic analogy of the Polanski brouhaha can be found in Charles Laughton’s NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, namely the hyper-reactive old salt of the general store, Mrs. Icey Spoon[…]
Links + BSA
