Monday, December 6 2010
I Am Become Undead: ‘Cronos’ by Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro evokes a sense of literary and filmic magic surrealism, one of the core traits of Latin American creative DNA, popularized by writers such Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who probe the painful politics that often prevail in the Latin world.
Tuesday, November 30 2010
The Devil Wears Spandex
Todd McFarlane's children are funny-looking, and anatomy is wildly inconsistent -- I think he designed Spawn’s cape to billow wildly just so that it would obscure Spawn’s feet, so that he wouldn’t have to draw them.
Friday, November 19 2010
Politicking with ‘Made in Dagenham’‘s Miranda Richardson
Miranda Richardson discusses this season's premiere feminism-themed film about the real-life strike at the UK Ford plant that challenged and changed British laws on equal pay. Just how far have we come since 1968 in the fight for gender equality in the workplace?
Monday, November 15 2010
Tearjerkers, Weepies, Three-hanky Pictures, Sudsers & Other Such ‘Balloon Juice’
Men's movies show us a fantasy of the man we'd like to be (Tarzan or James Bond or Sam Spade), while women's movies are transmogrified dreams of women's real lives.
Friday, November 5 2010
Take Your Daughter to Work Day: A Father Reflects on Years of Force-feeding Pop Culture to His Child
How will my daughter feel when her friends greet her in 2030 with an enthusiastic shout-out to Hannah Montana or SpongeBob SquarePants and she can only remember Bebop, Rocksteady, the Gentleman Ghost and Gyro Gearloose?
Thursday, October 7 2010
‘The Grapes of Wrath’: The Specter of Tom Joad Emerges From America’s Dark Past, Once Again
With the current economic climate -- increasing rates of foreclosure, evictions, unemployment, poverty and misery -- this classic story dangerously impinges upon the present to reveal the specter of Tom Joad emerging from the darkness, once again.
Wednesday, October 6 2010
Hollywood’s Silent Sister Act: A Tearjerking Tragedienne, a Sparkling Comedienne
Mary Pickford was the biggest female star at the beginning of the '20s and Greta Garbo was the biggest at the finish, but in between there were none bigger than Norma and Constance Talmadge.
Friday, October 1 2010
Pacific Hell Amid Days of Heaven: Terrence Malick’s ‘The Thin Red Line’
PopMatters' Paul Maher speaks with cast and crew about what went into Terrence Malick's million-and-a-half feet of film (250 hours) that would become The Thin Red Line (re-released on DVD by Criterion, 28 September).
Friday, September 3 2010
Masterpieces of Silent Film Are Rescued From Obscurity
Underworld, The Last Command, and The Docks of New York are masterpieces of visual storytelling -- human dramas expressed with cinematographic innovation, impeccably realized set design, and an unparalleled grasp of the “bigger picture” of the motion picture.
Thursday, September 2 2010
‘Word Is Out’‘s Historical Importance Cannot Be Underestimated
Tales of secrecy, discrimination, discovery, bonding, and isolation and loneliness are common, not surprising considering the social and political climate for the LGBT community in the '70s.
Wednesday, September 1 2010
‘Eclipse’: A Sort of Romantic Kind of Fairytale
When I saw Eclipse, a gaggle of teenage girls behind me giggled, gasped and squealed their way through most of the film. Each time their hysteria erupted, it happened during a romantic scene.
Monday, August 30 2010
‘Scott Pilgrim’ and What Movies Mean to Comics
Why do comics readers care about the movies made from their favorite books?
Friday, August 20 2010
Rambo’s Hold Will Never Let (Us) Go
The essential point of this series of all the Rambo films, muddy as it has been made by the hateful final installment, is that Rambo represents the failure of the American people to come to terms with their misadventure in Vietnam.
Thursday, August 5 2010
Pride and Prejudice
Clinging to the dictum “The personal is political”, and shunning such pesky realities as promiscuity, illness and civil rights, the progenitors of this Cinema Pride DVD have opted to focus simply on storytelling and character development.
Friday, July 30 2010
Barbequing with Legends: Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek on Cinema, Cinephilia and Good-Looking Shoes
On the eve of the release of Get Low, PopMatters talks with film legends Sissy Spacek and Robert Duvall about food criticism (sort of), film critics (without mentioning any, ahem, names), and of course, cute shoes (and a few other things).
Friday, July 23 2010
The Archaeology of Comedy: Ancient Funnybones Found Intact
More valuable fossils have been unearthed from the strata of film history thanks to these Kino and Flicker Alley DVDs: a bunch of lost Keatons and one lost Roxie.
Thursday, July 8 2010
Sequels We Were Unfairly Denied
While most moviegoers bemoan the glut of Hollywood sequels and remakes, City Slickers II: Coffee and Cake is just one of many unproduced sequels I wish we had the chance to see.
Wednesday, July 7 2010
Plan 9 for Ironic Appreciation: On B-movies, Riffing and Value-Added Irony
The RiffTrax line of DVDs reignites the enduring debate: Can something really be so bad that it's good?
Thursday, June 24 2010
Vampires vs. Werewolves: An Immortal Pop Rivalry
Pop culture thrives on rivalries, but few are as epic as the one between werewolves and vampires -- a rivalry which predates Twilight by, oh, some 60 years.
Wednesday, June 9 2010
‘Shutter Island’: The Fragile Intersection Between Sanity and Insanity
Shutter Island concerns the surrender of one’s own subjective memory and identity to another individual or institution. In order to make that choice -- to become a passive player in someone else’s version of reality -- must one be sane or insane?