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Michael BarrettAbout Michael BarrettMichael Barrett is a San Antonio-based freelance writer who tries not to leave the house. He has degrees from Trinity University in San Antonio and University of California at Davis. He watches one film a day. In addition to his features and reviews on PopMatters, see also his PopMatters column, Canon Fodder. Since the early ‘90s he has written a monthly video column for the San Antonio Express-News, and his national publications include Library Journal and the Chicago-based Nostalgia Digest. Features
Clint Eastwood: American Icon CollectionAgain in the Eastwood oeuvre, a man who thinks he's in control, and especially around women, finds out he's not quite. [4 June 2009] M Squad: Clench-jawed and World-wearyLee Marvin almost floats through his space, bending his graying hatchet-head forward on his tall lanky body, his loose limbs on the point of uncoiling into savagery when some mug pulls a rod or throws a punch. He's a dangerous gentleman. [15 April 2009] (Catherine) Deneuvian DepthsFace slapping, bathroom porn, and obsessive, possessive, manic-depressive, aggressive-aggressive fixations define these Catherine Deneuve non-masterpieces. [19 September 2008] The Invaders: Cold War Central with the Vietnam BluesThe aliens carry silver dollars with lights which function both as cell phones and as gadgets that can make anyone drop dead from an instantly diagnosable "brain hemorrhage". [29 August 2008] When Rules Were Meant to be (Silently) BrokenThe films produced by Thanhouser may seem fragile in their faded beauty and quaint devices, but their very age and quaintness become strengths to who admire the style and vigor of silent cinema. [1 February 2008] Berlin AlexanderplatzBerlin Alexanderplatz, both serial film and novel, are essential to knowing Rainer Werner Fassbinder. [3 December 2007] The Cult of PersonalityStalin's reach into Soviet Cinema is undeniable in these films, available on DVD: The Fall of Berlin: The Restored Soviet WW2 Epic, I Worked for Stalin, and Dialogues with Solzhenitsyn [2 November 2007] The Face of Another Cinema: Classic and Modern Mirrors of JapanCriterion captures three films directed jaggedly by Hiroshi Teshigahara, scripted enigmatically by novelist Kobo Abe, and scored unnervingly by Toru Takemitsu, and provides a welcome box of five films by Yasujiro Ozu. [1 October 2007] Avante-garde 2: Experimental Cinema 1928-1954Kino's second avant-garde film set showcases a few major pieces (such as Isou's Venom and Eternity) and some tantalizing minor works from major names (such as Broughton's The Potted Psalm). [21 September 2007] The Elusive Corpus: Jean Renoir CollectionThis smorgasbord of "minor Renoir" encompasses and even summarizes his career from beginning to end; a bargain for the cinephile, expert or novice. [26 June 2007] Columns
Buster Keaton: The Sound of His ObsessionBill Frisell's ambient, fuzzy, meandering guitar doodles sound like they're trying to approximate the sad stillness blowing through the corridors of Keaton's mind. [3 September 2009] (more Canon Fodder) You are Living in the Golden Years of CinemaExcellent movies are so thick on the ground that we're tripping on them – but never have so many delivered so much to such an ungrateful lot. [24 July 2009] (more Canon Fodder) ‘The City’: The Most Seen DocumentarySteiner and Van Dyke have an eye for beauty even in misery, and their compositions make this part of the movie a pleasure to visit, even if we wouldn't want to live there. [6 March 2009] (more Canon Fodder) Ken Russell at the BBCEverything here is in achingly beautiful and sharply restored black and white, everything is intelligent and witty, everything is deeply felt -- everything is Russell. [22 January 2009] (more Canon Fodder) Nary a Word: ‘The Last Laugh’ and ‘The General’The sound era added nothing thematically or tonally that wasn't already perfected in silent films. [4 December 2008] (more Canon Fodder) DIY: Takahiko IimuraTakahiko Iimura read about the American underground film movement and began making experimental works based only on what he'd read. Soon he was a leading experimental filmmaker. [8 October 2008] (more Canon Fodder) American Film TheatreIn what might be called the curse of Chekhov, the common setting is a living room, the common characters a family, and the common dynamic a stew of bitter backbiting and recrimination that ultimately gives the lie to Tolstoy, because here each unhappy family seems perfectly alike. [18 July 2008] (more Canon Fodder) Reviews
The Buttercup ChainWith locations in England's green and pleasant land, in sunny Spain and finally by a Swedish lake, this is a grand vacation movie thanks to cinematographer Douglas Slocombe. [18 September 2009] 
Paris 36 (Faubourg 36)The movie wants to be all fantasy, but it goes down like a sunken soufflé sprinkled with a sticky glaze. [17 August 2009] 
British Sea Power: Man of AranThere's strange symmetry to British Sea Power providing the soundtrack to a movie about the power of the sea, but the intended audience is the band's fans, not the filmmaker’s. [8 June 2009] 
Under Full Sail: Silent Cinema on the High SeasWe wish this DVD set a bon voyage as it launches forth onto the rough seas of digital enterprise in the current economy. It's crucial for film buffs to support such efforts, or they'll vanish like nitrate. [14 April 2009] 
Music for Airports & In the OceanBrian Eno coined the term "ambient music" for a certain kind of complex environmental music (his own) that rewarded any level of attention. [3 March 2009] 
Honey West: The Complete SeriesIt's breathtaking to see a woman so insouciant and self-defensive, even today. [8 January 2009] 
Perry Mason: Season 3 - Vol. 2This isn't a show about character, but a puzzle to tease the viewer with brisk, complicated stories. 
Weird Tales & Edgar Allen Poe CollectionsHorror fans may feel these collections are essential, but fans of the authors or aspiring genre filmmakers will appreciate them, too. [31 October 2008] 
Noriko’s Dinner TableA fractured (yet entirely unified) vision of the dissolution of identity, family, and morality in a society where people seem interchangeable. [13 June 2008] 
Before the NickelodeonBy 1907, a million people a day were going to nickelodeons, five-cent movie houses that showed pre-packaged, half-hour programs. [6 June 2008] 
The Exquisite Short Films of Kihachiro KawamotoStriking and beautiful; clearly indebted to the Czech school, but applied to Japanese traditions such as Bunraku puppet theatre, Noh masks, and ghost stories [21 May 2008] 
Alain Delon: Five Film CollectionDelon is a handsome French SOB -- and this set of five Delon films is a bargain for those who trawl the shallower end of French cinema's swimming pool. [8 May 2008] 
Slave WidowSome of the later pinks and other exploiters push concepts of sexual revolution and empowerment, sometimes in very odd and controversial ways, but this film doesn't go so far. 
The Last SupperMuch of the drama here is handled in the immediate, vital style of historical films from Eastern Europe, which are without exception the most fluid and immediate in cinema [1 May 2008] 
Black WidowThe classics 'Black Widow', 'Dangerous Crossing', and 'Daisy Kenyon' are found again, buried deep within the blanketing cloak of the 'film noir' category. [11 April 2008] 
The Second TrackThis is something of a late East German addition to film noir: a downbeat tale of moral corruption and heartbreak across an entire society. [1 April 2008] 
The Dragon PainterThis offers a fine example of how film history is continually forgetting and rediscovering itself, and it is our best legacy of Hayakawa's independent career. [17 March 2008] 
Post-War Kurosawa: Eclipse Series 7Many films of this era tap into fear and paranoia but not many address if destruction will come from those who fear it or those who ignore it. [14 March 2008] 
German Expressionism CollectionWe think of Expressionism, as practiced in the theatre and film of Germany and other European countries during the early 1900s, as a way of distorting the plastic elements -- Culture's extension of Nature's pathetic fallacy, where instead of trees and clouds reflecting our moods, it's the furniture and stairways. [7 March 2008] 
Bruce Lee: The Early Years 1953/1955Even though Hong Kong cinema of the era expresses traditional, conservative values, its concepts of parenthood, the past and the future, are often vexed, subversive, or tragic. [29 February 2008] 
The Untouchables: Season 1, Vol. 1This first season is addictive and almost uniformly excellent; the production values are high, the visual sense often delicious, and the murders consistently startling. [8 February 2008] 
Eugenie de SadeFranco's moral distance leaves us in freefall, and each turn in the descent feels increasingly queasy and claustrophobic. [7 February 2008] 
Syndromes and a Century (Sang Sattawat)Weerasethakul's films ". . . demand patience and close, quizzical attention, they are also generous, unpretentious and funny, posing thorny formal questions in a relaxed, democratic spirit . . ." [22 January 2008] 
Lost and Found: The Harry Langdon CollectionLangdon's schtick was his babyface and childlike demeanor, and his secret weapon was an understanding of the comic potential in qualities totally opposite to his colleagues and rivals. [18 January 2008] 
Route 66: Season 1, Vol. 1Today, any character who got into so many brawls would be sentenced to counseling; in 1960, it was part of the he-man's landscape, and the fights were important signifiers in any show about two guys living together in close friendship. [21 December 2007] 
Tales of Tomorrow: Collection Three - The 2nd Season ShowsThis show's seriousness can be seen by its attempt to involve professional science fiction writers (such as Theodore Sturgeon) and adapt contemporary SF stories, as well as reaching back to works of H.G. Wells, Jules Verne and Mary Shelley. [5 December 2007] 
A Cottage on DartmoorFilm historians have long overlooked British silent films. A Cottage on Dartmoor is a major rediscovery. [6 November 2007] 
Looking Back at Anger, or, We Always Have ParisAnger's films are suffused with the stuff of the Romantic Id: dream-logic, transgressive eroticism and taboo subjects, attention to color and music, literary references, religous and mythical elements, experimental editing and superimpositions. [2 November 2007] 
Discovering CinemaEverything most people know about silent films is wrong. Discovering Cinema gives us another look at the color and sound of the silent movie era. [29 October 2007] 
Fox Horror Classics CollectionJohn Brahm was part of the stream of German directors who immigrated to Hollywood from Hitler's Germany, and there was nothing wrong with his Expressionist eye in these high-contrast spectacles of psychological disturbance. [22 October 2007] 
Stories of the American PuppetA classic immigrant success story beginning with Punch and Judy, recently arrived on America's shores and ending with their descendants; Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy. [28 September 2007] 
Snake Womans CurseFilmed a year apart, Snake Woman's Curse and Horrors of Malformed Men contrast older traditions of Japanese horror with fresh modernism. [27 September 2007] 
L’IcebergHow strange it is to realize that the modernist aesthetic, which we think of as the visual language of alienation and ennui, traces its roots back into silent comedy. [25 September 2007] 
True Heart SusieMuch of this film, especially the first reel, is based on a form of comedy that gently spoofs its own conventions while faithfully employing them. [14 September 2007] 
Spring in a Small TownA rich study of the most poignant branch of human emotions: how people cause each other pain through love. [10 August 2007] 
MalpertuisThe late great Orson Welles lends his “bear-like” presence to this 1972 thriller with just the “right bad taste". [2 August 2007] 
Who Can Kill a Child? (¿Quien Puede Matar a un Nino?) (1978)What might at first seem like pulpy trash is rather an exploration of serious themes; horror is metaphor, not escapism. [16 July 2007] 
The One-Armed SwordsmanAt one of the largest studios in the world, the Shaw Brothers in Hong Kong produced hundreds of films from the '60s through the '80s in many genres: musicals, melodramas, operas, comedies, crime, romance, spies, jewel thieves. To most westerners, the name Shaw Brothers is synonymous with martial arts. [29 June 2007] 
Tyrone Power: The Swashbuckler Box Set (1949)Some favorite DVD box sets that will round out any classics collection. [29 May 2007] 
Regular Lovers (2005)The curious and intrigued among us could hope that this DVD foreshadows a resurrection of Garrel's fiendishly elusive output -- but ah, that would be like waiting for the revolution. Well, we can dream. [21 May 2007] 
The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (2005)Such is the tradition of the Quay Brothers, a rich and multi-storied one located within a web of open and secret influences among alchemists who never realized they were not alone. [4 May 2007] BlogsConsuming Consumables: Discovering Cinema [$29.99] [10 December 2007]Consuming Consumables: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. The Complete Collection [$249.95] [28 November 2007]Consuming Consumables: Elvis Road by Elvis Studio [$24.95]Consuming Consumables: Jean Renoir 3-Disc Collector’s Edition [$29.98] [19 November 2007] |
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