By Cleaver Patterson. Tales of vengeful murder victims whose spirits take on the shape of animals in order to exact revenge upon those who did them wrong, form the origin of legends the world over. However few can be as bewitching, or darkly romantic, as the Japanese folktale The Cat’s […]
Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told
June 19, 2013
By Cleaver Patterson. Sometimes it is hard to fathom why some films flourish and increase in popularity over time, whilst other equally deserving works are left to gather dust on the back shelf of film obscurity. Spider Baby (1968) – also known under the alternative titles Cannibal Orgy and Attack […]
A Portrait of James Dean: Joshua Tree, 1951 (2013)
June 18, 2013
By Robert Kenneth Dator. Rebel Without a Cause (1955); East of Eden (1956); Giant (1956); three films, and only three, classics all and the stuff of legend, starring the only actor to truly give a young Marlon Brando a run for his money: James Dean. The only thing more difficult to […]
Murder, Mayhem and The New Social Order: The Triumph of Violence in The Purge
June 18, 2013
By Wheeler Winston Dixon. “‘We, the people, in order to form a more perfect union . . .’ When our original Founding Fathers first set these words to paper, they strove to ‘establish Justice’, ‘insure domestic Tranquility’ and ‘promote the general Welfare.’ Today, the world is a much different place, […]
The Eternal Father: Two Films by Derek Cianfrance
June 17, 2013
By Christopher Sharrett. I hesitated as I began this essay, chiefly because I came across some interviews with Derek Cianfrance, whose work is the subject of these remarks. What he has to say struck me as banal, or immature, or conservative, particularly in his expression of a yearning for the […]
Rewinding the Story of Home Video: Interview with Filmmaker Josh Johnson on Rewind This!
June 17, 2013
By Matthew Sorrento. In today’s age of ethereal media, where films seep within hard drives and emerge on command, even DVDs and Blu-Ray formats seem like attempts to hold onto the past. The VHS tape contains a spooled tape – thus closer to film reels – along with a hollowness, […]
Man of Steel (2013)
June 15, 2013
By Cleaver Patterson. Superman has been reborn, and from hereon shall be known as the Man of Steel – at least he will if Warner Bros. Pictures’ new CGI heavy extravaganza is to be believed. Forget anything you think you know about Clark Kent and his alien alter-ego, as this […]
Ten Mantras of Man of Steel: or How to Make a Blockbuster
By Matthew Sorrento. The prologue on Krypton, detailing Superman’s birth, will play as the start of an intriguing science fiction adventure – and then shall be exploited in a bizarre sf-horror invasion of Earth. Zack Snyder should take his title too literally and pack his film with imagery of steel […]
Museum Hours (2012): A San Francisco International Film Festival Review
June 12, 2013
By Mark James. Here’s a problem: people are things as well as they are people. Not as much as people are people, clearly, but people’s sensual bodies as well as their social being exist in precisely the same plane of things-in-the-world, as junk at a flea market or artifacts in […]
Chimeras (2013): A San Francisco International Film Festival Review
June 10, 2013
By Mark James. The documentary Chimeras is a contemplative, respectful attempt to look at Chinese modernity through the lens of its art. The film ends with a tripartite definition of the title. A chimera is a mythological beast made of different animal parts; a wild, unrealistic dream or fantasy; and […]