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.”
African American · Directors · Interviews
A Quiet Storm: Charles Burnett on Namibia and His Post-Killer of Sheep Career
“Each film requires for me its own approach.”
Bright Sights: Recent DVDs: Berlin Alexanderplatz, Harry Langdon, Early Kurosawa, I Am Cuba, The Dragon Painter, Wrath of the Gods, Méliès
Berlin Alexanderplatz (Phil Jutzi, 1931) Franz Biberkopf must be one of the most porous characters in all literature. In Alfred Döblin’s 1929 novel, Berlin Alexanderplatz, a modernist torrent — dialogue,[…]
Historical & Epic · Writers & Critics
Bowling for America: Robert Warshow, There Will Be Blood, and the Topography of Desire
“The king-times are fast finishing. There will be blood shed like water, and tears like mist. But the peoples will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I foresee it.”
The Human Monster: On Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood
“There are no good and bad men; there are only damaged men … “
Notes from the Tribeca Film Festival Underground
This Tribeca Film Festival is on, and I live on 12th St. and 2nd Ave, across the street from one and a block away from another theaters at which it[…]
Take this unborn child and shove it!
Is it just me or is there a distinctly pro-life vibe seeping into our once so “liberal” cinema? This JUNO business has all us population control enthusiasts worried sick, and[…]
BLUE CRUSH is my Oyster Cult.
Spring is here, so I took the time recently to reappraise BLUE CRUSH, the 2002 girl power surfing flick starring Kate Bosworth. Man, now more than ever, we need girl[…]
Why Can’t We all just Morally Compromise?
I had to watch this odd romantic-ish comedy last night called SEX AND DEATH 101. Many other critics have been bashing it, calling it uneven and it can’t decide[…]
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