By Thomas M. Puhr. Here is a filmmaker who remains unafraid of taking big creative risks but has clearly struggled with the ethical implications of adapting this dark chapter from American history. His heart is in the right place, but is he not still on that stage at the end?” […]
The Surveillance Economy of David Fincher’s The Killer (2023)
By David Ryan. The Killer argues that no matter how much security wealth buys or the number of datalocks that conglomerates build, these defenses can be poked and usurped by determined criminals. Conversely, no matter how clandestine criminal cells are organized, they can be destroyed, particularly from within.” Spoiler Alert […]
Lost, but Not Dead: London After Midnight
By Gary D. Rhodes. I’ve solved this mystery. You’re at the bottom of it.” – Hibbs (Conrad Nagel), London after Midnight, 1927 Tod Browning’s London after Midnight, released by MGM in 1927, represents America’s first supernatural vampire feature film. Except that it isn’t. It does not depict a supernatural vampire, […]
The Father of the Iranian New Wave: Dariush Mehrjui, 1939-2023
By Ali Moosavi. The discovery of the groundbreaking filmmaker’s body with that of his wife in their home, both stabbed, on Saturday, 14 October (found by their daughter), has sent a shockwave throughout the film community at a troubling time…. The news item was brief: the bodies of the Iranian […]
Birdeater: An Australian Masculinity Run Amok
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. Sydney filmmakers Jim Weir and Jack Clark turn the mirror inwards to examine the conditions where, if left unchecked, certain kinds of male social relationships can grant violence against women a space to flourish.” Launched in 2021, the Australian government-supported Our Watch organization rolled out the “Doing […]
The Street of Forgotten Men (1925): From Story to Screen and Beyond
By Thomas Gladysz. An act of cinematic and cultural archeology. I just kept on digging to find out what I could find out.” Film International contributor Thomas Gladysz has published a fifth book, The Street of Forgotten Men: From Story to Screen and Beyond (PandorasBox Press). He describes it as […]
Reflections on Oppenheimer: The Jewish Question, Bad Conscience, the Bomb
By Christopher Sharrett. This story is well-known…. We are deprived of the factors transforming him into the destroyer of worlds, as well as those making him into the pathetic cowboy, and the smart aleck who could not mount a sensible defense in the face of imbeciles without being a stupid, […]
Australian Horror Now
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. As a diverse and multicultural country, I would like to see us producing horror that represents the wide range of storytelling styles and lived experiences that come together to make this country what it is.” –Isabel Peppard “It was a difficult decision to make it even using […]
Scorsese’s Night Moves: After Hours (1985)
By Jeremy Carr. Scorsese’s follow-up to The King of Comedy (1982) can be as stressed as any thriller or even a horror film, or as ostensibly innocuous and banal as a plaster of Paris bagel and cream cheese paperweight.” It starts with a pen that doesn’t work, just as he’s […]
Recognizing Belafonte
By Robert K. Lightning. If Poitier’s films frequently situate him as an integrationist hero, successfully negotiating the rocky path to white acceptance, Belafonte’s films typically chart a very different path where acceptance is not always the goal, making him often Poitier’s cinematic antithesis.” With the announcement of Harry Belafonte’s death […]