Stars and stuff on the silver screen.
“So! Yu-dan! You have the guts to show your face around here!” “Yes, Li Bai. I have done much thinking.” “And what have you decided? To face your shame! To be a man! Or to run away, again, like a coward?” “I feel no shame, Li Bai. I know I …
Patrick Hamilton was a gentrified British version of Jim Thompson: a disreputable alcoholic who supported himself by writing twisted pulp novels with an even bloodier jagged edge than most. Like Thompson, he marked his work by a seedy personal perspective and a talent for the sudden appearance of the bizarre …
113th Congress, 2nd Session H.R. 7162 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES — June 4, 2013 AN ACT To deter and punish acts of comedic violence in the United States and around the world, and to further control and prevent the occurence of slapstick-related deaths and injuries by means …
Ida Lupino’s The Hitch-Hiker breaks a lot of the ‘rules’ of film noir, and in doing so, it sometimes scans like a prescient warning bell of the post-Psycho revolution in crime drama than it does a product of the 1950 B-picture system. This is by no means meant as a criticism; …
V-CHIP THEATRE PRESENTS: THE GREAT FILMS 1. The Godfather (1971; Francis Ford Coppola, dir.) An Italian-American family struggles to thrive in an extremely competitive business environment. 2. Vertigo (1958; Alfred Hitchcock, dir.) San Francisco police detective investigates confusing identity theft, fails to take medication to control phobia. 3. The Seven …
Le Pont du Nord, which I saw earlier this week in a gorgeous new 35mm print at the Northwest Film Forum, is a baffling creature; neither a straightforward narrative nor an entirely experimental impressionistic piece, it’s hard to figure out while you’re watching it and even harder to suss with …
Orson Welles’ Mr. Arkadin (also known as Confidential Report, Dossier Secret, and a handful of other names) is one of the most difficult to assess items in the great man’s filmography, which is one reason I’ve resisted seeing it for so long. While the general consensus seems to be that it’s a noble failure, …
I’d finished my scone and was having a second cup of Turkish coffee when I saw him. The No. 73 Express bus from the University District had come in a few minutes before, and he was peering in one end of the café window, the end nearest the anarchist bookstore, …
LIVER The most common of the variety meats is also the easiest target. The mere mention of liver perennially brings a frown to children’s faces, and even among adults with more sophisticated palates it is unjustifiably maligned. The truth is, this vitamin-packed, easy-to-extract organ is easily prepared, affordable, and quite …
And now, a review of the trailers I saw tonight prior to a screening of Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. Wish You Were Here: This Australian mystery/thriller seems to revolve around two identically scruffy-looking numbskulls, one of whom disappears while on Holiday. At first this makes his girlfriend and the other …
LADY OF THE LAKE OVER DAYS OF THUNDER 17 – THE CHASE SCENE Sign of the Big Showdown. Auspicious box office. No problem. 1 A car damaged. Good editing. Get up and go for popcorn. 2 Boy meets girl. 3 Boy loses girl. Boy chases girl, finds self. Good dialogue …
ATLANTIS. First of all, it’s Atlantis. Not Atlantis City. The minute you guys open your mouths and say “Atlantis City”, we know you’re just some fish-gilled, gawking tourist from Lemuria or something. Second, we don’t have gambling here. That’s Atlantic City. METROPOLIS. There’s more to see here than fucking Superman, …
It looks like the Russians let us down again. Of course, it was the bloody Russians letting us down in the first place that put the four of us here, in a second-rate room in a Hyatt Regency that disgraces the words “Hyatt” and “regency”. It was because they couldn’t …
I sat down to write a review of Terrence Malick’s latest film, To the Wonder, with the goal of speaking only of the work itself, an approach I have often found valuable in music writing: by trimming off the fat, by burying the excess, by considering only the art under contemplation …
Film Studies 289: New Themes in Conflict. Richard Illarde and staff. Full Course. M/W/F 10AM. The study of film — the only completely original art form of the 20th century — has for too long been governed by dated or archaic terminology, blinkered pedagogy, and hand-me-down methodologies borrowed from other …
