By Tony Williams. Like most of his films, Oliver Stone’s Nixon (1995) generated considerable critical debate usually emphasizing questions of historical accuracy and biographical depiction. However, unlike JFK (1991) and Natural Born Killers (1994), it received poor box office returns. Nixon not only represented Stone’s decision to change his usual […]
From Page to Screen: Writer-Director Steven Knight on Locke
By Paul Risker. Steven Knight is primarily known as the screenwriter of Dirty Pretty Things (2002), Amazing Grace (2006) and Eastern Promises (2007), directed by Stephen Frears, Michael Apted and David Cronenberg, repsectively. Last year saw Knight add to his early television directorial credit, helming his directorial debut and sophomore […]
A House of Nightmares: Douglas Sirk’s Sleep, My Love
August 28, 2014
By Jeremy Carr. Sleep, My Love begins with a nightmarish state of panic as Alison Courtland (Claudette Colbert) wakes to find herself inexplicably on a Boston-bound train. She doesn’t remember boarding the train. In fact, the last thing she recalls is going to sleep in her New York City home. […]
At the Forefront of Horror: An Interview with Julia Wrigley
August 27, 2014
By Cleaver Patterson. Film4 – the British digital television channel, owned by Channel 4 Television Corporation – was launched in 1998. Since then it has become renowned as a champion of cutting edge film from both home and abroad. As a result, the channel became sponsors in 2006 of the […]
Sleepwalker (1984)
August 25, 2014
By Janine Gericke. Saxon Logan’s 1984 film Sleepwalker was once thought to be lost. Distributors weren’t sure how to market and sell the film; so instead, it ended up on a shelf for nearly 30 years. Finally, BFI Flipside have not only restored the film for a DVD/Blu-ray release, but […]
Netflix and National Cinemas
August 24, 2014
By Wheeler Winston Dixon. This article caught my attention about a week ago, and though I blogged on it then, it seems important enough to me to warrant further exploration. Under the headline “Netflix Will Rip the Heart Out of Pre-Sale Film Financing,” Schuyler Moore wrote in Forbes that: “Netflix is […]
Love is Strange (2014)
August 20, 2014
By Mark James. Love is strange, and so is the real estate market these days, especially in New York. Love’s form can change along with the place and the people that house it. And so Love is Strange—director Ira Sachs’ and screenwriter Mauricio Zacharias’s second installment in a New York […]
Consumed: David Cronenberg’s Foray into Body Horror Prose
August 18, 2014
A Book Review by Shane Joaquin Jimenez. The Nest (2014), the latest film by David Cronenberg, is comprised of a single unbroken GoPro shot. A topless woman sits on an examination table in a dungeon-like basement, pleading for a mastectomy. Her left breast, she says, is filled with a swarm […]
Vindication of an Heiress: Surprise revelation, alienation effect, and screen persona in Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
August 18, 2014
By Robert K. Lightning. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956) was Fritz Lang’s final U.S. film.[1] In several obvious ways it can be read as a companion piece to the film that preceded it, While the City Sleeps. Both films star Dana Andrews as a reporter-turned-novelist. Both narratives also involve a […]
The Varieties of Experience: Michel Gondry’s Mood Indigo
August 16, 2014
By Paul Risker. In my review of Alive Inside for Film International, the idea arose that the act of explaining one’s love of a piece of music undermines the intimate bond formed between person and art. Now whilst discussion may not undermine any intimate bond formed in this case between […]