Sunday Spiritus Cinemacticus: Fessing up to the Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
It may not be good, but it’s great. It’s great in that it’s gutsy way that no-holds-barred downers like REQUIEM FOR A DREAM and THEY SHOOT HORSES DON’T THEY are[…]
Terrible things to the human spirit
It’s shameful and it’s sad this en masse critical ass-whupping given to poor old M. Night Shyamalan over his second turkey in a row, THE HAPPENING (which would be a[…]
Asian · DVD & Blu-ray · Reviews
DVD of the Week: Come Drink With Me (1966)
It’s not the typical kung fu movie in that the action is not very well choreographed. I don’t think actress Cheng Pei-pei could do too many stunts. But director King[…]
Summer is a time for Aldrich, but keep Sister George away…
It’s been a few weeks since I laid eyes on it, but there’s something still making me a bit sick whenever I think of THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE. So[…]
Book review: Pictures at a Revolution, Mark Harris
Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood Mark Harris. New York: Penguin Press, 2008. Cloth, $27.95, 496pp. ISBN 1-594-20152-8. Observers of the Academy Awards[…]
Great Dads of the Seventies #13: Jack Nicholson in THE DEPARTED
Just because THE DEPARTED doesn’t really seem to occur in the 1970s doesn’t mean Nicholson’s amazing performance as the Irish criminal top dog villain, Frank Costello, doesn’t count. Nor doesn’t[…]
Crime · Reviews · Writers & Critics
Critics Cornered: On Reviewers’ Reactions to David Ayres’ Street Kings
“Anyone who speaks unsanitized thought is going to lose.”
One Culture, Two Systems: The Rules of Spanglish and Twice Upon a Time
“When talking to others, what needs to be articulated?”
Serpentine Evil and the Garden of Eden: On DeMille’s Samson and Delilah (1949)
Samson, meet Adam; Delilah, meet Eve
Who Do You Love? Jean Renoir’s Rules of the Game Reconsidered
Was Le Grande Jean too soft on the aristos?
Actors & Personalities · Directors · Interviews
Birds Do It, Bees Do It: Isabella Rossellini Talks About Bug Sex, Human Sex, and Green Porno
“A laugh and information!”
Plus Ça Change: The 2008 Rendez-vous with French Cinema
Gingerly moving out of the 20th century, not quite into the 21st
Dream Documents of Civil War: Three Films by Miklós Jancsó
“Jancsó’s controlled aesthetic acts as a dissonance that vibrates expressively with scenes of violence, torture, and shame.”
Gothic Eurowesterns: A Grotesque Perspective on a Hollywood Myth
On the manifest destiny of Civil War tricksters and gun-slinging corpses
What’s Your Function? How Movies Are Made
You mean you’ve tried panicking?
Festivals & Awards · Writers & Critics
Twenty-One Years in the Midday Sun: Revisiting Roger Ebert’s Cannes
Here’s lookin’ at you, Roger
Directors · Festivals & Awards · Interviews
From a Line of Ancestors: Talking with Doris Dörrie and Natasha Arthy
“We in the West trample on them.”
Directors · Documentaries · Festivals & Awards · Interviews
What’s Up, Docs? Nonstandard Operating Procedures in Recent Documentaries, and Interviews with Patricio Henriquez and Doug Pray
“Why didn’t you just stick to the truth?”
Directors · Interviews · LGBT & Queer · Memoir
Man with a Movie Camera: Visiting Jonathan Caouette
“I could somehow control my own story.”
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