By Christopher Sharrett. This is an attempt at a brief revaluation of Roger Corman’s cycle of adaptations of the work of Edgar Allan Poe, which strike me as among the most significant contributions to the psychological turn of the horror film, equaling in intelligence and ambition, if not realized achievement, […]
Laurence Anyways
By Anna Arnman. Laurence Anyways is the 23-year-old Canadian Xavier Dolans third film as director and writer. His acclaimed previous films J´ai tué ma mere (I Killed My Mother, 2009) and Les amours imaginaires (Heartbeats, 2010) were partly autobiographical and Dolan also acted in them, but this time he follows […]
Safar’s Friday Forum
September 24, 2012
Malu Halasa reports from “Safar: A Journey Through Popular Arab Cinema,” the most ambitious programme of popular Arab film ever seen in the UK, organized by The Arab British Centre, in partnership with The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and Dubai International Film Festival, 21-27 September 2012. “We are not […]
Maya Deren’s Ritual in Transfigured Time
By Francis DiClemente. Last summer, in the midst of the blockbuster movie season dominated by sequels, 3-D animation and superhero offerings, I stumbled upon a cinematic treat from a forgotten era. While eating my lunch at my desk one afternoon, I went to YouTube to look up some alternative music […]
“Lost in a Roman Wilderness of Pain”: Film and Television After 9/11
By Wheeler Winston Dixon. “This is the end My only friend, the end Of our elaborate plans, the end Of everything that stands, the end No safety or surprise, the end I’ll never look into your eyes again Can you picture what will be So limitless and free Desperately in […]
Dark Humor in Films of the 1960s – Part 4
By Wheeler Winston Dixon. This is the fourth and final part of “Dark Humor in Films of the 1960s.” Follow these links for previous installments: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. As the 1960s drew to a close, so did the string of dark comedies; the real world was bleak […]
Capitalism Eats Itself: Gluttony and Coprophagia from Hoarders to La Grande Bouffe
By Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. “Recently my dull life seems to have no meaning I am stuck with someone We’re not communicating I want to buy Have you been affected I need consoling You could be addicted” (“Spend, Spend, Spend,” The Slits [1979]) Consumption. Excess. Gluttony. Hoarding. Waste. Massive debt. The […]
Dark Humor in Films of the 1960s – Part 3
By Wheeler Winston Dixon. This is the third article in a 4-part series. You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here. Death has often been used to comic effect in films, but an all out assault on what Jessica Mitford termed “the American way of death” is another […]
Dark Humor in Films of the 1960s – Part 2
By Wheeler Winston Dixon. This is the second article in a 4-part series. You can read Part 1 here. With sick comedy beginning to bubble up through the margins of the studio system in Hollywood, filmmakers in Britain soon leaped on the bandwagon. The country was in a “gallows humour” […]
Little Ted, Among the Dead
By Matthew Sorrento. Imagine Seth MacFarlane, late at night, banging the deskspace next to his laptop – the real him, not the smiling, media friendly celebrity we’ve come to know. He’s on deadline to return notes for the script of his feature film, to be his feature directorial debut. In […]