By Richmond B. Adams. During a conversation approximately one-third of the way through The Dark Knight (2008), Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) expresses to Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine) his view concerning the escalating rampages of The Joker (Heath Ledger) across Gotham City.[1] Wayne states that “Criminals aren’t complicated, Alfred. We just […]
The Sentinel Excavated
By Christopher Sharrett. I use the word “excavated” in my title not because the 1977 horror film The Sentinel , directed by Michael Winner, is lost to film history, but because it has been buried – with some justification – by legitimate criticism worthy of respect. I will argue in […]
The Best and the Most Overrated of 2015
By Film International. The editors’ Top 10 and Overrated 10 include films that were released in the editors’ respective regions during 2015. They have been selected by Daniel Lindvall (editor-in-chief, based in Stockholm, Sweden), Jacob Mertens (review and festival editor, based in Madison, WI, USA) and Matthew Sorrento (interview and […]
CGI and the Audience: Things Better Left Unsaid
By Fred Wagner. The Show of Shows (2015), a recently released documentary made out of archive footage shows the lost world of the circus – a cornucopia of acts the like of which were once the vanguard of kitsch but that now seem so alien you can look at them […]
The Battle for Fair Remuneration: A Slovenian Drama with International Consequences
By Edgar Tijhuis. Sometimes it seems like time stood still in Slovenia. In 2009 Variety magazine reported about a “royalty battle” in central and eastern Europe. Television producers and other rights-holders of audiovisual material, were allegedly losing up to 10 million euros a year in royalties, as the international collecting […]
“All My Treasures”: On Ingrid Bergman – In Her Own Words (2015)
By Tony Williams. Critic-director Stig Bjorkman, well known for his studies on directors such as Woody Allen and Ingmar Bergman, has made an intriguing documentary on this well-known star to which he has also collaborated on the screenplay. Most documentaries either concentrate on abundant clips from films already well known […]
I, Shakespeare by Anonymous and Last Will. & Testament
By David Ryan. Rewriting history is a common academic enterprise, and crafting Elizabethan history – particularly Shakespearean biography – is composed recursively. Though Anonymous (2011) is neither a serious effort at literary biography nor historical drama, Roland Emmerich and John Orloff’s speculative work about Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of […]
(((1973)))
January 27, 2016
Kurt Vonnegut Hunter Thompson Norman Mailer Tom Wolfe William Burroughs Jonathan Miller William Burroughs Jr Jacob Bronowski Robert Hughes Bob Woodward Carl Bernstein Peter Maas Germaine Greer Ray Connolly Geoffrey O’Brien Pauline Kael Grover Lewis Leonard! Bernstein! “There was a point in ’73 where I knew it was all over,” […]
Traces of Postindian Survivance: Two Short Films by Jeff Barnaby
By John Garland Winn. Jeff Barnaby, a Mi’kmaq First Nations director, was four years old when the Quebec Provincial Police raided his Restigouche Reservation to restrict salmon fishing rights. The events of the raid are explored in Alanis Obomsawin’s documentary Incident at Restigouche (1984) and, as Barnaby recalls, are forever […]
Rereading The Wire: police procedural, social games and the magic of blood
By Rajko Radović. Blood has been shed on the asphalt at night. We see it in close-up as thin red lines spreading in all directions into the darkness and the ghetto, and then the blood becomes what it really is in the cult American series The Wire – pulsating wires […]