Sweet Dreams: Irony, Power Dynamics, and Dance in Kinds of Kindness

By M. Sellers Johnson. Through acute genre-defying sensibilities of black comedy, arbitrary of conduct, supernatural inflections, and elusive drama, the multi-narrative Kind of Kindness presents messy, yet biting tales of humanity beset by submission, conspiracy, and cults of persuasion.” Kinds of Kindness (2024) is a vigorous power play of peculiar […]

Two Early Genre Gems: The Bat (1926) and The Canary Murder Case (1929)

By Thomas Gladysz. Released by Undercrank Productions, The Bat stands as a high point in the ‘old dark house’ genre / sub-genre.” In the first decades of the 20th century, film was finding its way. Then, the various genres were being defined — and redefined, with the release of just […]

On the Brink of Obliteration: Black Dog (Gou Zhen, 2024)

By Yun-hua Chen. A portrait of a town on the brink of obliteration and a meditation on lives rendered powerless by political and socioeconomic currents….” A man and a dog in a small northwestern town in China’s Gobi Desert—this premise might sound like a minimalist bore, but not when the […]

Pandemic Dreams: A Trip Elsewhere

By William Blick. A zany yet suspenseful cinematic experience.” I saw the phrase, “after the plague, came the renaissance,” scribbled on a subway station wall and thought it was perhaps somewhat applicable to the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. It seems that there has been a huge surge of creativity […]

Slow-Paced Stakes: The Vourdalak

By Andrew Montiveo. A hauntingly unique addition to the vampire canon, much like the story that inspired it.” When discussing vampiric cinema, Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu inevitably comes to mind. Ironically, the “original” Nosferatu was truly original – a German knockoff of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Stoker’s 1897 novel remains the definitive […]

“Nobody Knows the Trouble I See”: Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths

By Jeremy Carr. Why do some people behave as they do?… It’s the psychosocial terrain explored in Mike Leigh’s latest engaging slice of life….” All somebody has to do is spend about five minutes on social media to see that people are angry. Sometimes, the causes are obvious, widespread, and […]

Both Sides Now: Arrival by David Roche

A Book Review by Thomas M. Puhr. Entertaining to everyday audiences without sacrificing philosophical complexity or skimping on actual research.” For nearly a decade now, Denis Villeneuve has worked exclusively within the science fiction genre. Thanks to his popular Dune saga and the cultural legacy attached to his sequel Blade […]

“Night Wanderings” with Nosferatu (2024)

By Gary D. Rhodes. Few filmmakers are as capable of waking the dead, and of transporting us to them, than Robert Eggers, the Charon of American cinema.” “He is coming,” we learn of Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) during Robert Eggers’ new film, just as we have heard for many years […]