The Fourth Man, Paul Verhoeven's final Dutch-language film before his sojourn to Hollywood to direct films like RoboCop and Basic Instinct, is a typically delirious fantasia from this gleefully controversial director. Awash in lurid Christian symbolism
Hey all...I am free from a contract gig that was taking up an immense space of my time and energy...but hallelujah, I free! Which in turn, leaves me more time for my precious blog--aren't you lucky? lolHow about a little movie news, yes?First up, I don't
Derek Jarman's film of The Tempest, William Shakespeare's final play, challenges the idea of the "faithful" literary adaptation. Jarman's marvelous, light-hearted, visually evocative film is, for the most part, true to the text of Shakespeare's play,
Werner Herzog's documentaries are rarely just passive recordings of real events; Herzog engages directly with the material of the world, shaping and crafting "reality" into an expression of his own personality and obsessions. As a documentary filmmaker,
--Willona Woods aka Mary J. Blige in Tyler Perry's "I Can Do Bad By Myself" --Aunt Jemima's Revenge --This blog based wholly on loony-tune blogger Sandra Rose (thanks sergio) lovingly referred to as "Crusty": http://sandraroseisahater.blogspot.com/--This
Melinda and Melinda starts with a premise that might be derived from a college creative writing exercise. A group of people, talking over dinner, begin debating whether life is essentially tragic or comedic. Two of the men (playwrights — one a tragedian
Part two of the third installment of the monthly feature The Conversations has now been posted at the great multi-author film blog The House Next Door. As I said yesterday, this month Jason Bellamy and I each selected a film from the last few years that
The third installment of my monthly feature with Jason Bellamy, The Conversations, has now been posted at the great multi-author film blog The House Next Door. This month, Jason and I each selected a film from the last few years that we deemed to be
Riding Shotgun is a low-key, static Randolph Scott Western, obviously inspired by High Noon, casting Scott as stoic stagecoach guard Larry Delong, facing down an entire town who are not only unwilling to help him in his fight against a vicious gang of
Much of David Cronenberg's career has been devoted to fearlessly excavating the strangest, most unsettling corners of human psychology and sexuality, expressing primal emotions through the grotesque "body horror" for which the director was, until recently,
Jacques Rivette's 1988 film Gang of Four is a kind of summation of the elusive auteur's style and thematic concerns, a skillful variation on the various threads that wove through his work of the preceding three decades. It encompasses his passion for
The Exterminating Angel is Luis Buñuel's most darkly funny and vicious satire of upper-class mores, an eviscerating portrait of how easily the façades of civility, nobility and good manners can be broken down. The film's famous premise involves a dinner
When Anthony Mann made The Furies in 1950, he'd been making hard, tough, low-budget noirs for the past decade, and would shortly become known for making a series of hard, tough Westerns. Most of these latter films would star James Stewart in some of
There is one thing that really burns me, and that is folks that put down or discourage the dreams and aspirations of others. There is nothing more disheartening than sharing your thoughts and ideas with someone, only to be told that they are ridiculous
