Elegy of Ephemera: Exploring Decay in Bill Morrison’s Cinema
The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object . . . which we do not suspect.1 – Marcel Proust,[…]
Crime · Drama · Family · French Cinema · Linguistics and Language
Anatomy of a Fall and the Expatriate’s Predicament
Daniel is presented as a talented pianist, with an intellect of one well beyond his years. He is both strong-willed and sensitive. He is affectionate with his mother, yet culturally[…]
Asian · Drama · Experimental & Underground
Auto-Focus: Reflexivity, Autocritique, and Formal Experimentation in Hong Sang-soo’s In Water (2023)
The reflexive nature of Hong’s formalism, in which stylistic decisions call attention to themselves and point to the mediating presence of the man behind the camera, makes it problematic to[…]
Book Review: Terrence Malick and the Examined Life, by Martin Woessner. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024. $65.00
Malick, in other words, is a director who established himself during the transition from Old Hollywood to New Hollywood, where experimenting became the norm, and it is while experimenting at[…]
Animation · Animators · New Genres · New Media
Mercs and Mortality: Emesis Blue, a Fan-Made Team Fortress 2 Horror Flick
The film may appear gamer oriented, but general audiences should find it accessible and entertaining based on its fright factor alone. It’s simultaneously a boon to content-starved TF2 diehards and[…]
Activist & Political · Actors & Personalities · Communism and Socialism · Race · Women in Film
A Difficult Woman: The Disobedient Life of Jean Muir
At every turn, Muir was disobedient, unconventional, and disruptive; she simply didn’t care what people thought. At no point did it occur to her that she should curb her activism,[…]
Animals · Documentaries · German Cinema · Nature
Werner Herzog’s Mystic Powers of Storytelling through the Archive: On Grizzly Man and The Fire Within
I will be writing about just what his meticulous and brilliant use of archival footage in these films does to the stories, and how there is a thread connecting them[…]
Drama · Historical & Epic · Holocaust
The Air We Breathe: Ecology and Atmosphere in The Zone of Interest (2023)
If the choking of the camp victims is muffled in the film, it is darkly recapitulated in the sputtering coughs that spread through the family, from Höss to Hedwig’s mother.[…]
Absurdism · Cityscapes · Drama · Literature and Film · Writers & Critics
Cosmopolis: A DeLillo–Cronenberg Mutation
Cosmopolis reflects the experience of a cancer patient, housed within a corporatized institution, dependent on the biases and whims of authorities, machines, and data. The book and film, poorly reviewed[…]
Actors & Personalities · Drama · Essays · Romance
Gazing at Gary Cooper: Sex, Power, Gender, and the Body in Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938), Ball of Fire (1941), and Love in the Afternoon (1957)
As with Monroe, his seemingly all-but-transparent method has proven remarkably difficult to emulate, much less duplicate. (Toles, 2003: 34) Whatever happened to Gary Cooper? The strong, silent type? That was[…]
Horror Held in Sunbeams Along the Garden Wall: On The Zone of Interest and the Mundanity of Preservation
Sunbeams, radiant and warm. Human bodies, young and old. And who are imprisoned here, our hearts are yet not cold. We who are imprisoned here, are wakeful as the stars[…]
Crime · Directors · Drama · Historical & Epic
Simply Human: Bob Clark’s Murder by Decree
The animal is the only genuine thing in man. – Frank Wedekind * * * A woman sits rhythmically rocking by candlelight, her eyes focused on a distant point. Around[…]
Crime · Drama · Historical & Epic · Indigenous · Native Americans
Family Viewing: The Osage Nation, the Reign of Terror, and Killers of the Flower Moon
Killers interweaves the Western, film noir, the gangster film, the police procedural, the courtroom drama, and even a bit of horror; however, it jumps between them with often elliptical editing[…]
Artists · Directors · Indies · LGBT & Queer · Mondo Culture · UFOs
Whispers from Space: Life as a Hollywood Insider/Outsider
Filmmaker Ralph Coon speaks frankly to Tony Conn about his cult UFO documentary, the hidden side of Hollywood, and doing heroin with Adam Parfrey. * * * Ralph Coon might[…]
Books · Crime · Directors · Drama · Franchises & Series · War
Book Review: Sam Wasson, The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story. Harper, November 2023, 400pp, $32.99
Coppola not only lived for his films but also lived in and through them, in a constant process of inventing and reinventing himself both as an artist and as a[…]
Activist & Political · Comedy · Drama
Reactionary Politics: On Sean Price Williams’s The Sweet East (2023)
It’s easy to mistake The Sweet East for a progressive indictment of modern America, with its gun-wielding conspiracy theorists and predatory authority figures – but they belie a blasé politics[…]
“Nothing Inside”: On Pablo Larraín’s El Conde (2023)
This man who watches you returns from hell […]; he is hollow, he is full of air. Dry hands hold him upright from behind, like a house of cards being[…]
Comedy · LGBT & Queer · Sex & Relationships · Uncategorized
Meta-Morphoses: Sebastián Silva’s Rotting in the Sun (2023)
As seen with Jordan and Mateo, Silva extends his self-fictionalization to most of the cast, taking actors and regurgitating them as screen versions of themselves. Sometimes the cinematic portraits come[…]
Activist & Political · Directors · Drama · Labor
Strategizing Solidarity: Ken Loach’s The Old Oak (2023)
“There can be no resistance without memory or universalism” – Jean-Luc Godard, In Praise of Love (2001) * * * With his new feature, The Old Oak (2023), Ken Loach[…]
The (Asian) American Dream: Neoliberal Feminism, Orientalism, and Ambivalence in Crazy Rich Asians
Crazy Rich Asians’ re-orientalization of Asians reinforces Eurocentrism and the Western gaze. Feminist and Orientalist readings of this film ultimately divulge the ability of Asians in the West to subconsciously[…]
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