By Thomas Puhr. You hear before you see anything: a muffled gurgling noise accompanies the black screen over which the opening credits play. This disorienting audio elicits several questions (Who, or what, is making these noises? Are they sounds of pleasure, discomfort, pain?), all before a single image appears. With […]
“The Man with the Million Dollar Smile”: The Douglas MacLean Collection
Jeremy Carr
February 17, 2020
By Jeremy Carr. Douglas MacLean is hardly a household name, even among those who consider themselves ardent enthusiasts of silent cinema. It’s little wonder, then, that prior to One a Minute (1921) and Bell Boy 13 (1923), the two films included in the Undercrank Productions DVD release of The Douglas […]
Chile, a Rough Beast Emerging: Patricio Guzman’s The Cordillera of Dreams
Michael Sandlin
February 12, 2020
By Michael Sandlin. In this, the third and final entry of Chilean exile filmmaker Patricio Guzman’s documentary trilogy poetically examining his native country, he uses the famous Cordillera mountains as his geographical and philosophical centerpiece. From the initial lavish overhead shots of this majestic mountain range we eventually get to […]
The “Kids” are Back: Rene Eller’s WE
February 11, 2020
By Gary M. Kramer. We (aka Wij), now available on DVD and Blu-ray from Artsploitation Films, is being billed as a shocking story of reckless, amoral youth. The film features pornography and explicit sexuality (involving teens), death, (teenage) prostitution, blackmail, more sex, more death, violence, rape, and more bad behavior. […]
What Do You See? Alien in the Mirror: Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Glazer and Under the Skin by Maureen Foster
Thomas Puhr
February 4, 2020
A Book Review by Thomas Puhr. Recently appearing on both Cahiers du Cinéma’s top 10 of 2010-2019 and Variety’s list of the decade’s most overrated films, Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin (2013) remains deeply divisive. Though Maureen Foster acknowledges and embraces its polarizing effect in her superb Alien in the […]
A Masterful Work of Synthesis: The Legacy of the New Wave in French Cinema by Douglas Morrey
February 3, 2020
By Margaret C. Flinn. The New Wave cast a shadow that extends far beyond influencing French film of the late 1950s-early 1960s. That is the central argument of Douglas Morrey’s The Legacy of the New Wave in French Cinema (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020). This assertion might seem self-evident to many French cinephiles, but […]
Cinema of Hidden Histories: Leontina Vatamanu’s Siberia in the Bones (2019)
Brandon Konecny
January 29, 2020
By Brandon Konecny. Moldova has a fascinating recent history, and Leontina Vatamanu is perhaps its most articulate cinematic chronicler. Poke through her films, and you’ll realize that her cinema is one of hidden histories: whether it’s exploring one of Moldova’s most famous modern poets and politicians in Grief of Ion […]
Blunt Force Psychodrama: José Ramón Larraz’s Edge of the Axe (Arrow Video)
January 28, 2020
By Rod Lott. By the time the 1980s settled into middle age, the Gothic and/or supernatural horrors in which José Ramón Larraz specialized – Vampyres, Whirlpool, Stigma, et. al. – no longer were in favor. Thanks to Jason Voorhees and the VHS explosion, the slasher movie became de rigueur. Within […]
The Language of Lovecraft: Richard Stanley’s Color Out of Space
January 24, 2020
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. To say that the US premiere of cult filmmaker Richard Stanley’s much-awaited return to feature filmmaking was one of the most buzz-laden events at this year’s Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, is an understatement. On one hand this was driven by the enigma of Stanley alone, director […]
Jack Clayton’s “Angry Young Man”: Room at the Top (Kino Lorber)
January 23, 2020
By Gary M. Kramer. The 1959 classic drama, Room at the Top, based on John Braine’s “angry young man” novel, has just been released on DVD by Kino Lorber in a 2K Restoration Special Edition. The film was a sensation at the time of its initial release for its frank […]