A Book Review by Ipek A. Celik Rappas. The Other Air Force explores post-9/11 US investments in Middle Eastern broadcasting initiatives especially in places of conflict and economic uncertainty. Matt Sienkiewicz’s The Other Air Force: U.S. Efforts to Reshape Middle Eastern Media Since 9/11 (Rutgers, 2016) is based on fieldwork (interviews with […]
Ham on Die, with a Side of Cupcakes and Beer: The Dismembered
By Elias Savada. Taking a film out of distribution purgatory, Garagehouse Pictures is the final link in a rescue involving an obscure 1962 horror comedy relic called The Dismembered, now seeing the light of day courtesy of a region-free Blu-ray edition. This brief, 65-minute heist/haunted house feature was made by […]
20 Rms, Expanding Views: Dave Made a Maze
August 15, 2017
By Elias Savada. Is there any way to regain whatever amount of dignity an actor has gained in his career after he’s played a penis? Funny guy Nick Thune, who played a live action prick in 2014’s penile comedy Bad Johnson, thinks so. With the titular role in Dave Made a […]
Rebelling in the Right Direction: Midnight Movie Monographs’ Martin by Jez Winship and Theatre of Blood by John Llewellyn Probert
August 12, 2017
A Book Review by Tony Williams. Before the successful re-launching of We Are the Martians, editor Neil Snowdon initiated a new series by the same company PS Publishing, namely Midnight Movie Monographs, with these two examples as opening salvos. The intention of this new series is to birth a “disreputable […]
As Offbeat As Fancher: Escapes
August 11, 2017
By Jeremy Carr. Escapes, a new documentary from director Michael Almereyda and executive producer Wes Anderson, begins with Philip K. Dick’s ruminations on “counterfeit worlds…Semi-real worlds as well as deranged private worlds, inhabited often by just one person.” The acclaimed author’s role in the movie Almereyda develops is an important one, […]
Working for the Police, Working for the City, or Selling Drugs: Stanley Corkin’s Connecting The Wire
August 11, 2017
A Book Review Essay by John Duncan Talbird. David Simon’s television series The Wire ran on HBO from 2002-2008, five seasons of a prestige show that, in the less than ten years since its last episode, has reached iconic status and is on most critics’ top-ten shows of all time lists. […]
From Brooklyn, with Camp – Paul Bartel: The Life and Films by Stephen B. Armstrong
A Book Review by Irv Slifkin. Say the name and the image of an overweight, balding man with a neatly trimmed beard and unctuous demeanor comes to mind. In productions released by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures during the 1970s, Bartel seems to be there all the time, stealing scenes […]
The Indian Film Critics Have Done It Again!: Reading Gender in Ki & Ka Through the Cinematic Lens of R. Balki
August 9, 2017
By Devapriya Sanyal and Melissa Webb. The Indian film critics have done it again! As Glover and Kaplan state in their book Genders, the term “gender” itself is rather slippery. Such complicated issues regarding gender and performance are explored by Indian film director R. Balki, who attempts a gender role-reversal of sorts in his […]
Gazpacho with A Shot of Estrogen: Almodovar’s Women On The Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
By Kate Hearst. As statistics continue to demonstrate the persistent imbalance of women’s representation on screen,[1] Pedro Almodovar’s Women On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), beautifully restored by Criterion, is like a shot of pure estrogen. This screwball comedy, one of Almodovar’s best, packs a full range of […]
The Dark Tower: The Mighty King Has Fallen
August 5, 2017
By Elias Savada. The phrase “lump of coal” comes to mind after watching The Dark Tower, a lavish and most definitely lackluster CliffsNotes abridgment of a CliffsNotes adaptation of the Stephen King science fiction-fantasy-western magnum opus. The film prides itself by drop-kicking the prerequisite landscapes, people, myths, and phrases that abound […]