A Book Review by M. Sellers Johnson. Júlia Havas scrutinizes selective applications of feminist analysis and responds with the charge of provoking media studies scholars to scrutinize those who engage in reductive feminist discourse.” Júlia Havas’s new monograph Woman Up: Invoking Feminism in Quality Television (Wayne State University Press, 2022) […]
Heaven is Overrated: Luke Boyce’s Revealer
By Thomas Puhr. It didn’t go where I expected it to. And at the end of the day, isn’t that just about one of the best things a movie (especially a horror outing) can have going for it?” Watching Luke Boyce’s Revealer (2022) gave me a much-needed lesson in patience. […]
Half-Baked Cosmic Horror: Rich Ragsdale’s The Long Night
By Thomas Puhr. The Stuart Gordon ingredients are indeed there, though the film which precedes this loving dedication fails to do anything interesting with them.” Rich Ragsdale’s The Long Night (2022) – we learn during its end credits – is dedicated to schlock-master Stuart Gordon. This comparison makes sense: the […]
“An Act of Willful Defiance”: Terence Davies’s Benediction
By Theresa Rodewald. Unconventional and even daring while not appearing to be so.” “I am making this statement as an act of willful defiance of military authority because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it,” writes poet Siegfried Sassoon […]
5 Billion Hours: Daisuke Miyazaki’s Videophobia (Kani Releasing)
By Thomas Puhr. Despite some striking imagery and a strong central performance, Videophobia never exceeds a low boil.” Daisuke Miyazaki’s Videophobia (2019) begins with an extended masturbation scene. You’d think such an opener would – at the very least – grab the viewer’s attention, but the sequence somehow lands with […]
A Pompous Pageantry of Moviemaking: Gaspar Noé’s Lux Æterna
By Jeremy Carr. Doesn’t hold a candle to Gaspar Noé’s best work, though it does represent the worst of his occasionally strained attempts for shock and awe.” With no establishing context and following a few curious quotes and seemingly random clips from early films about witchcraft, Gaspar Noé’s Lux Æterna […]
Eye on (and Off) the Ball: William Klein’s The French (1982)
By Thomas Puhr. Beyond just chronicling an event, Klein’s sports doc is a cultural artifact in and of itself – not about the time, but of it. With this year’s French Open making the rounds on the news, now is an ideal opportunity to revisit the tournament’s famous 1981 competition, […]
From Burundi with Cyberpunk: Neptune Frost
By Elias Savada. A vibrant celebration of homegrown culture set against an African dreamscape tinged with Marxist underpinnings.” Thou Shalt Not Exploit Technology might be one of the newer commandments to be considered after inputting this new, unconventional avantgarde piece, a self-proclaimed cyberpunk musical filmed in Burundi. It played at […]
Desperate Times, Desperate Measures: Fernando Ayala’s The Bitter Stems (Los tallos amargos, 1956)
By Jeremy Carr. The imagery of Los tallos amargos is not only its most strikingly noirish attribute, but it’s among the more dazzling of any film, of any genre.” A cursory survey of film history would seem to suggest that Hollywood had cornered the market on the best of what […]
Marion Davies’ Slow-Burn Revival: Zander the Great (1925) and Beverly of Graustark (1926)
By Thomas Gladysz. Davies was at her delightful best in comedies with a contemporary setting…. Nevertheless, her earlier costumes dramas and period pieces, like Zander the Great and Beverly of Graustark as well as the 2019 Undercrank release, Little Old New York, still have considerable charm.” The inherent contradiction in […]