American Splendor (Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, 2003) A Book Review by Thomas Puhr. The collection’s 19 contributors deftly sidestep the ‘Are superhero movies cinema?’ debate – which usually leads to pointless semantic hair-splitting – and instead focus on diverse examples (from American Splendor, to Modesty Blaise and Scott Pilgrim) to illustrate the […]
Film Scratches: November 2020
Film Scratches is a blog by David Finkelstein focusing on the world of experimental and avant-garde film, especially as practiced by individual artists. It features a mixture of reviews, interviews, and essays. Apocalypse With a Silver Lining: Letter from the Gone World (2017) In Lydia Moyer’s powerful 18 minute essay film, Letter from […]
A New Gamble: Rupert Penry-Jones on Getting to Know You
By Gary M. Kramer. I feel my whole life has been one big gamble from the moment I chose to become an actor. I feel the buzz of getting a job is the same as winning the jackpot.” Getting to Know You, available on demand November 24, is a poignant, […]
Majestic Visual Style and Inimitable Dialogue – Fuller at Fox: Five Films 1951-1957
Fixed Bayonets! (1951) By Tony Williams. Viewers should gain plenty from seeing Fuller’s majestic visual style and hearing his inimitable dialogue in this special collection.” Eureka’s distinctive series has made a very worthy addition to their acclaimed series with five films by the great Samuel Fuller whose significance appears on […]
Embracing the Imbecility of Life: Stuart Ashen Returns with Ashens and the Polybius Heist
By Elias Savada. All hail the group’s second silly caper that will undoubtedly engross some of you. It does have a certain intoxicating charm to it.” Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of Jerry Jeff Walker, the American country music troubadour who died last month. His rendition of Gary […]
Let’s Go to the Videotape: Foulness Afoot in Alexander Nanau’s Collective
By Elias Savada. Horrific footage of the inferno casts an eerie light as Nanau’s film begins, and, with a surgeon’s precision, he peels away the scab hiding an immoral national health-care system at home, one that had been secretly festering for a decade.” It took a Romanian sports journalist to […]
Keeping the Peace: On David Freyne’s Dating Amber
By Zoe Kurland. The film is redeemed by its overall heart, precious bouts of whimsy, and, above all, the care given to moments of quiet when the battle recedes into the background.” The year is 1995, and a group of Irish soldiers (the 57th battalion, to be exact) has just […]
Lulu Forever: The 2020 Louise Brooks FilmPodium Retrospective (Zurich)
Fritz Kortner and Louise Brooks in Pandora’s Box (G.W. Pabst, 1929) By Thomas Gladysz. Louise Brooks has been described as a “cult actress”…. But as both the Melbourne and Zurich retrospectives show, there is a good deal more to this singular performer.” Last October, the Melbourne Cinémathèque in Melbourne, Australia […]
The Ghosts of Guilt: On Bryan Bertino’s The Dark and The Wicked
By Zoe Kurland. A true sense of terror hums through the film, though Bertino gives us many clues but few conclusions….” In an early scene in Bryan Bertino’s The Dark and The Wicked, the Straker siblings, Louise (Marin Ireland) and Michael (Michael Abbot Jr.) sit on the porch of their […]
Prometheus on Netflix: How The Trial of the Chicago 7 Sidelines a Black Panther’s Struggle
By Greg Burris. Whereas the previous films sought to emphasize Seale’s struggle, The Trial of the Chicago 7 diminishes it. In Sorkin’s directorial hands, Seale’s chains are turned into a plot devise, and they function primarily to bolster the film’s main concern: a war within the white left.” My initial […]