A Book Review by John Duncan Talbird. Don Carpenter killed himself in 1995. He was a writer’s writer, never famous for the ten or so novels, dozens of stories, or screenplays he wrote and published from the sixties to the late eighties. In the 1960s, when he was first publishing and […]
Sundays and Cybèle: Serge Bourguignon’s Oscar Winner Now on Criterion
February 13, 2015
By Jude Warne. On April 8th 1963, at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, it was announced that Serge Bourguignon’s film Sundays and Cybèle had won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Fifty-one years later, Criterion has re-released Bourguignon’s Oscar winner in a remarkably satisfying Blu-ray package that showcases […]
99 Homes: A Sundance Review
February 8, 2015
By Jacob Mertens. Ramin Bahrani—known in the indie festival circuit for his subtle, observational features Man Push Cart (2005), Chop Shop (2007), and Goodbye Solo (2008)—enters the current festival year with a film that pushes past the scope of the individual and toward grand meaning. Specifically, he seizes on the […]
The Duke of Burgundy: Sex Film, No Nudity
By John Duncan Talbird. Peter Strickland’s new film, The Duke of Burgundy, is a cleverly beautiful and beautifully crafted exploration of the humiliation of servitude and the power struggles that take place in a relationship. It’s about the compromises and the banality of routine that comes with love. And it’s […]
Two Days, One Night: Woman at Work
By Christopher Sharrett. I have been meaning for some time to applaud the work of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. Their new film Two Days, One Night seems the appropriate occasion for recognition, but all of their films merit regular revisiting and, in my view, celebration. But Two Days may be […]
Hans Helmut Prinzler’s Sirens & Sinners: A Visual History of Weimar Film 1918-1933 (2013)
January 31, 2015
A Book Review by Brandon Konecny. Having reviewed books on cinema, one of its main pleasures is discovering unexplored clefts in the art’s brief history. There’s always something new. Did you know, for instance, that in the early days of cinema, studios employed photographers to capture onset moments rather than […]
The Tedious Body Horror of Wetlands (2013)
By James Teitelbaum. “The vagina reeks of life and love and the infinite et cetera. O vagina! Your salty incense, your mushroom moon musk, your deep waves of clam honey breaking against the cold steel of civilization; vagina, draw our noses to the grindstone of ecstasy, and let us die […]
Still The Enemy Within (Owen Gower, 2014, UK)
By Anthony Killick. Owen Gower’s debut feature film offers a narrative of the 1984-85 miners strike, the loss of which has triggered three subsequent decades of neoliberal power consolidation. If history belongs to the winners, then this film proves that at certain points the winners will have to make concessions. […]
American Sniper: War’s Glories
By Christopher Sharrett. For a number of years there has been considerable critical palaver about the “ambiguities” of Clint Eastwood’s ideology, with monographs and essays on the topic published at a regular pace. Eastwood himself once said “I do the stuff John Wayne would never do,” meaning he, as Old […]
Appropriate Behavior: Not a Chick Flick
By John Duncan Talbird. Writer-Director Desiree Akhavan’s funny and touching first film, Appropriate Behavior, is one of a type of smart, simple dramas that have appeared over the past few years: Rachel Getting Married (2008), Your Sister’s Sister (2011), Frances Ha, and Celeste and Jesse Forever (both 2012) to name […]