By Christopher Sharrett. I hope that Steven Spielberg’s The Post ignites more interest in the standard media, at a time when blogs and rightist websites, and the repugnant Fox News, are lauded by the Trump Administration and its friends as the only outlets not involved in “fake news.” But that’s […]
Seasonal Pageantry from Philadelphia: Christmas Dreams
January 25, 2018
By Elias Savada. Christmas comes but once a year, but folks who like the holiday’s sweet joy and heartfelt message might take a look at Christmas Dreams anytime they’re down and weary. It’s a surprisingly simple spiritual picker-upper that takes The Little Drummer Boy and The Nutcracker Princess, two public domain […]
“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 […]
Home Sweet Homicide: Mom & Dad
January 23, 2018
By Elias Savada. Nicolas Cage, like Bruce Willis, seems to be trying everything and anything to reinvent his career. Or find a wider audience, like the ones that once flocked to the back-to-back-to-back hits (The Rock, Con Air, Face/Off) which followed his Oscar-winning performance in Leaving Las Vegas, a distant 23 […]
Dread and Genetics – An Interview with Hèctor Hernández Vicens on Day of the Dead: Bloodline
January 22, 2018
By Tom Ue. Hèctor Hernández Vicens reimagines George A. Romero’s 1985 zombie classic in his new film Day of the Dead: Bloodline. Starring Johnathon Schaech, Sophie Skelton, and Marcus Vanco, Bloodline follows a med-school student (Skelton) into an apocalyptic, zombie-filled world, where she is haunted by a half-human, half-zombie. Vicens is […]
New York Stage and Screen Marvel – Anne Bancroft, A Life by Douglass K. Daniel
January 22, 2018
A Book Review by Louis J. Wasser. “I’m always lonely when I work…You’re going through a very private inner experience that requires personal strength. I accept this loneliness, but it’s one of the big fears of going back to work.” (158) – Anne Bancroft Moviegoers bore witness to a sea change in […]
Out of a Bleak Past: An Interview with Lynne Ramsay on You Were Never Really Here
January 20, 2018
By Ali Moosavi. In 90 years of Academy Awards, only one woman director, Kathryn Bigelow, has been awarded the Best Director Oscar. The recent stories of women harassment in the American film industry has shown that it has indeed been a man’s world in Tinsletown though this is surely changing […]
Utopia Achieved: Call Me by Your Name
By Christopher Sharrett. I’ve kept in mind Luca Guadagnino since his 2009 film I Am Love, which made such good use of both Visconti and Renoir while creating a work wholly Guadagnino’s own. I was less impressed with A Bigger Splash (2015), which seemed to me a work poorly thought-through […]
Beuys: Fame and the Pithy Statement
January 18, 2018
By John Duncan Talbird. “Everything under the sun is art,” Joseph Beuys famously – or fatuously, depending on your point of view – asserted. He also said “Everyone is an artist.” And: “I nourish myself by wasting energy” and “There’s no such thing as weekends” and “Nothing needs to remain the […]
Far From Complete – Ingrid Pitt, Queen of Horror: The Complete Career by Robert Michael “Bobb” Cotter
January 15, 2018
A Book Review by Tony Williams. Upon reviewing Ingrid Pitt, Queen of Horror: The Complete Career (McFarland, 2018, revised from a 2010 edition), I recalled my one and only meeting with Ingrid Pitt (1937-2001) was for an interview at a theatre in a location more aptly qualifies for the Apocalypse […]