The Rote High School Persecution of Ellen Page
There’s something definitely original about the scattershot editing collage techniques of THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS (2007), getting a belated US DVD release after a year in Canada and the broken film[…]
America is Hard to See (Emile De Antonio; 1970)
Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 Presidential campaign started on a premise that would sound downright exotic coming from a member of the United States Senate today. He believed that US military agression[…]
The land beyond beyond….
I’ve yet to brave the crowds for Dark Knight, but I’m sufficiently death-obsessed of late to be fascinated by Heath Ledger’s “Joker from beyond the grave” and all the weird[…]
Summer Movie Essential: NIAGARA (1954)
A strangely soothing, a sun-drenched proto-neo-noir, NIAGARA is one of my favorite Marilyn Monroe movies, up there with DON’T BOTHER TO KNOCK and THE MISFITS in its ability to capture[…]
FilmCrit and the Skidoo Epiphany
Over the weekend I read an essay on J.D. Salinger which Janet Malcom published in the New York Review of Books back in that now lost and fabled time, June[…]
Directors · Experimental & Underground
Some Remarks on Bruce Conner and Report
Entering into negotiations with executives at Time, Inc. over the sale of a film he’d shot in Dallas on November 22, 1963, Abraham Zapruder was adamant that his 26.6 seconds[…]
The Pantheon of Macho-Fey
Sounds like some evil tournament Bruce Li would enter to find the man who killed his master, but no – “macho-fey” is a term coined by the celestial Kim Morgan[…]
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.”
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