A Book Review by Thomas M. Puhr. It’s hard to think of a genre filmmaker today capable of going so far out on the ledge of bad taste while maintaining an artistic skill that ranks them with the best of the horror masters. In this sense, Stuart Gordon remains one-of-a-kind: […]
Genre-Blending, Gender, and Subversive Views of Sexuality and Mental Health: Perspectives on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
A Book Review by M. Sellers Johnson. An engaging read for both longstanding fans of the show and first-time viewers.” Despite its deceptive title Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (CW, 2015-19) proves to be rather nuanced in its address to this ostensibly negative trope by examining issues of obsession, mental health, plurisexuality, and […]
All A-bored: Bullet Train
By Elias Savada. Style only goes so far in the case of Bullet Train. It can’t make up for all the other problems, especially the leaky script, self-destructing humor, and bland visual effects.” The bland zen-casual jokes that abound in Bullet Train — a boldly-stylized, hyper-exaggerated adaptation of popular Japanese […]
One Man’s Gutsy Final Journey – Jack Has a Plan
By Elias Savada. [With] a low-key ghoulish humor…Jack Has a Plan bookends the moments of Jack’s emotional departure with an audio-visual scrapbook of memories and some lovely discoveries.” There’s a low-key ghoulish humor that welcomes viewers to this documentary: “Formaldehyde Films Presents,” especially since this life-affirming story is all about […]
Not Alone: Akiko Ohku’s Tremble All You Want (Kani Releasing)
By Thomas Puhr. The kind of release that makes you appreciate the untapped reservoir (at least for Western audiences) that is contemporary world cinema, and wish for more home video releases like it.” When we first see Yoshika, she is knee deep in a quarter-life crisis. “I’m such a wimp!” […]
Trauma, Born Again: Resurrection (2022)
By Jeremy Carr. Resurrection moves along at a generally foreboding pace with efficiently intermittent revelations and expository arrangements, largely motivated by Semans’ devious direction, Hall’s multifaceted performance, and the outlandishness of its expectant impetus.” Margaret has it all figured out. She’s successful and in control at work, presiding over her […]
A Subtle Kind of Heroism: From Where They Stood
By Michael Sandlin. From Where They Stood shows that documentary filmmaking – used by the Allies during WWII to bring the true scope of Nazi concentration camp horror into the public eye in the first place – can still shed historically relevant light on the Holocaust eighty-some years later.” Although […]
Fist in the Fire: Wang Yu’s One-Armed Boxer (Arrow Video)
By Thomas Puhr. This ‘plot’ is mostly window dressing for a series of increasingly complicated (and ridiculous) fight sequences. These set pieces are impressively choreographed and shot…boasting the kind of excessive violence similar genre exercises promise yet don’t always deliver.” The good people at Arrow Video may have the market […]
Of Time and the City – Maya Duverdier and Amélie van Elmbt’s Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel
By James Slaymaker. But the overarching ambition of Dreaming Walls is to preserve an image of the Chelsea Hotel while there is still some semblance of the creative spirit which one animated it remaining.” Early in Maya Duverdier and Amélie van Elmbt’s elegant, mournful documentary Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea […]
Avoiding Complacent, Selective Angles – Woman Up: Invoking Feminism in Quality Television
A Book Review by M. Sellers Johnson. Júlia Havas scrutinizes selective applications of feminist analysis and responds with the charge of provoking media studies scholars to scrutinize those who engage in reductive feminist discourse.” Júlia Havas’s new monograph Woman Up: Invoking Feminism in Quality Television (Wayne State University Press, 2022) […]