By Richmond B. Adams. During “The Reaping” sequence from Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) “volunteer[s] as tribute” to save her younger sister Primrose (Willow Shields) from almost inevitable “death in the upcoming arena” (22). While exceptional for District 12 of Panem, Katniss’ interposition is quite familiar […]
Consistent Passion, Little Fanfare: RBG
May 4, 2018
By Elizabeth Toohey. Towards the end of the powerful new documentary RBG, we follow the 85-year-old Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg into a sculpture garden where she is being given a tour. Of a figure of a woman clad in armor standing at the ready, the guide explains, “It’s called […]
Genius in Collaboration: The Outer Limits, Season One from Kino Lorber
By Tony Williams. I saw my first episode of The Outer Limits on a regional independent television station in the mid-60s. Opening with the evocative credit sequence “There is nothing wrong with your television set. We will control everything…” the off-screen voice of Vic Perrin promised to take us all […]
Beauty and the Dogs: Women’s Revolution in Tunisian Cinema
By Matthew Fullerton. As Hollywood grapples with diversity issues, it is interesting to note how Tunisia, an emergent democracy since its 2011 revolution, has witnessed women filmmakers moving into the forefront of a traditionally male-dominated film industry. Emboldened perhaps by the 2014 Constitution guaranteeing freedom of opinion, thought, and expression, […]
Family Values and Civic Duties: Fassbinder’s Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day
March 14, 2018
By Jeremy Carr. Rainer Werner Fassbinder was particularly adept at transitioning between the cinema and television (and theater, for that matter), starting the crossover just a few films in to his prolific directorial career, with Das Kaffeehaus, a TV movie released in 1970. In 1972, already with a mind-boggling 14 titles […]
Unlovely Spectacle: D.A. Miller on Call Me By Your Name
By David Greven. An exchange I had with an older, straight, white academic in Film Studies serves as an instructive example of a particular phenomenon that I will call the Miller Effect. Hearing me express admiration for Ang Lee’s 2005 film Brokeback Mountain, which I consider a masterpiece, he stared […]
Marcel Pagnol’s “Marseille Trilogy”: An Essential Reemerges on Criterion
By Christopher Weedman. Among the most impressive film restorations of 2017 was Marcel Pagnol’s Marseille Trilogy (1931-36), which I reviewed last March when Janus Films screened it theatrically in select US cities. Those not fortunate enough to live near such splendid art-house and independent film venues as the Film Forum […]
The Form and Function of a Cult Film: Deep Red by Alexia Kannas
A Book Review Essay by Jeremy Carr. Alexia Kannas’ Deep Red (Columbia University Press, 2017), her contribution to the Wallflower Press Cultographies series, in which she takes a deep dive into the making, reception, and legacy of Dario Argento’s 1975 giallo masterpiece, is an ideal meeting of author, subject, and publishing […]
White Micro-aggression Against Black Film: Awards and Why They Matter
January 30, 2018
By André Seewood. Every weekend numerous websites inform us of the short term box office grosses of various films like Star Wars: The Last Jedi which itself has raked in a whopping 591 million dollars in short-term office gross in this country alone. This notion of box office profit as the […]
“America First” or Second? – America Through a British Lens: Cinematic Portrayals 1930-2010 by James D. Stone
A Book Review Essay by Tony Williams. Captain Hornsby: “What an extraordinary fellow!” Colonel Thompson: “Well, he’s an American.” – Too Late the Hero (Robert Aldrich, 1970) This book, which began life as a doctoral dissertation, represents the best attributes of McFarland Publishers in bringing to publication works that would generally be ignored by […]