By Elias Savada. The anecdotes and stories fly by with breathtaking glee, broken up by rare footage of the master at work. The directors keep the talking heads on target as diary entries explore her broadening excitement.” Julia Child always left me smiling. And hungry. She may have died 17 […]
The Perks of Being a Chameleon – Eye of the Taika: New Zealand Comedy and the Films of Taika Waititi
A Book Review by Thomas Puhr. Matthew Bannister’s goal [is] to go beyond merely celebrating/adoring its subject. Cheeky title notwithstanding, this book is no puff piece.” I’d only seen two Taika Waititi films – What We Do in the Shadows (2014) and Thor: Ragnarok (2017) – before picking up Matthew […]
The Peckinpah Masterpiece that Never Was: Major Dundee (Arrow Video)
By Tony Williams. Major Dundee dissects the soul of a particular form of dangerous American ambition taking short cuts, left and right, to achieve its aims.” The films of Sam Peckinpah are as controversial as the director’s personality, especially the problematic question of Major Dundee (1965). Was this a possible […]
Corporate Gangsters, Rogue Cops, and Big Heists: Robert Miklitsch on Gangster Noir in Midcentury America
By Theresa Rodewald. In my books on ’50s noir, I was particularly intrigued with how certain ‘structures of feeling’ impact the genre, be it ‘the Bomb’ or the ‘red scare,’ the civil rights movement or the beginning of the end of the classical studio system.” The 1940s and 1950s are […]
Eyes Wide Shut: The Legacy of Abu Ghraib in Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter
By James Slaymaker. The final act of retribution may not have any longstanding effect on the military-industrial complex, but Tell has, at least, committed himself to one, concrete action which he knows to be just.” In the opening sequence of The Addiction (1995), Abel Ferrara’s deeply chilling existential horror film […]
The Man Who Wasn’t There: Speer Goes to Hollywood
By Anees Aref. An informative if somewhat dry history lesson, Speer is a cautionary tale of historical whitewashing that reaches for urgency in a time of increased worries over misinformation and “fake news” being peddled around the world.” Whatever one may say about the Nazis, and a lot has been […]
No Magic Allowed: Elle Callahan’s Witch Hunt
By Thomas Puhr. Embodies the most grating qualities of the message movie. Calling this supernatural allegory on-the-nose would be giving it far too much credit.” Most, if not all, films convey a message – implicit or explicit – but some are a message; that is, they have little reason to […]
“The Selling of a Dream”: Evan Jackson Leong on Snakehead
By Theresa Rodewald. The American Dream is this thing that we sell, that our culture sells. We’ve been selling it for decades now, it’s a propaganda tool, a myth. I wanted to dispel that myth by making sure that our character is not here for the American Dream.” Snakehead is […]
A Not-So-Prodigal Daughter Returns: Spencer King’s Time Now
By Elias Savada. A dirge-worthy film, chock full of familial doom and gloom….If you like despondency and depression, here’s an indie effort that doses it out in large quantities.” Spencer King, the writer and director of Time Now, has crafted a dirge-worthy film, chock full of familial doom and gloom. […]
The Velvet Underground: Mourning a Lost Bohemia
By Christopher Sharrett. I very much recommend Haynes’s film, but, [f]or me at least, it’s a reminder of all that has disappeared….” Todd Haynes’s new film The Velvet Underground has an obvious place in the filmmaker’s oeuvre; it connects to his early film Poison (1991) and much that followed, films […]