Michael Barrett

Michael 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

Friday, June 5 2009

Clint Eastwood: American Icon Collection

Again in the Eastwood oeuvre, a man who thinks he's in control, and especially around women, finds out he's not quite.

Thursday, April 16 2009

M Squad: Clench-jawed and World-weary

Lee 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.

Friday, September 19 2008

(Catherine) Deneuvian Depths

Face slapping, bathroom porn, and obsessive, possessive, manic-depressive, aggressive-aggressive fixations define these Catherine Deneuve non-masterpieces.

Friday, August 29 2008

The Invaders: Cold War Central with the Vietnam Blues

The 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".

Friday, February 1 2008

When Rules Were Meant to be (Silently) Broken

The 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.

More Features »

Berlin Alexanderplatz [3.Dec.07]

The Cult of Personality [2.Nov.07]

The Face of Another Cinema: Classic and Modern Mirrors of Japan [1.Oct.07]

Avante-garde 2: Experimental Cinema 1928-1954 [21.Sep.07]

The Elusive Corpus: Jean Renoir Collection [26.Jun.07]

Columns

Thursday, February 2 2012

Prime Time Larceny: It Takes a Thief

Al Mundy (Robert Wagner) enjoys a reputation as a world-class thief, a glamorous burglar, a pickpocket's pickpocket. Too bad he landed in prison.

Tuesday, December 6 2011

Showing My References: On Reading Too Much About TV & Watching Too Much TV

I still yearn for a hefty volume of pages to take down from the shelf, to leaf through at my leisure or to zero in on that relevant fact.

Friday, October 14 2011

Clear! Old-School Medical Drama, Stat!

A once-popular medical drama reveals how much has changed in America's health care industry -- and its television medical dramas -- and how much remains the same.

Thursday, August 4 2011

The Guys Who Bond in the Sky: 'Toward the Unknown'

All this aircraft is blatantly fetishized, with Bond at one point giving his plane an impulsive and passionate smack of the lips.

Thursday, May 26 2011

Share the Stage, 'Glee' -- TV Feels a Song Coming On

The history of TV musicals is richer -- and stranger -- than you think. At least three sitcoms were singing long before Glee came along: That's Life, The Monkees and The Partridge Family. Before them, well, if I could sing it to you...

More Columns »

'Cinema' --That's Italian for Cinema [5.Apr.11]

King Henry of Hollywood [10.Feb.11]

Charlie Chaplin, Tramping Step by Step [13.Jan.11]

Sex & Death & Rock 'n' Roll or, The Kids Weren't Alright [10.Dec.10]

Tearjerkers, Weepies, Three-hanky Pictures, Sudsers & Other Such 'Balloon Juice' [15.Nov.10]

Fantômas: The Case of the Dastardly Scalawag [20.Oct.10]

Hollywood's Silent Sister Act: A Tearjerking Tragedienne, a Sparkling Comedienne [6.Oct.10]

You'll Never Get Rich -- Bwa! Ha! Ha!: Sgt. Bilko: The Phil Silvers Show [16.Sep.10]

'The Mothers-In-Law': Just for Good Measure, We'll Give Everyone the Intelligence of a Radish [31.Aug.10]

The Archaeology of Comedy: Ancient Funnybones Found Intact [23.Jul.10]

Peyton Place: When Discretion Was Partly a Genteel Quality, Partly a Requirement of the Censor [25.Jun.10]

Perry Mason Knows: Anyone May Be Guilty, Evil Lurks Just Beneath the Mask of Respectability [28.May.10]

The Goldbergs: The Most Jewish Show on Television [28.Apr.10]

Reality with a Pinch of Salto [5.Mar.10]

Silent Revelations [20.Jan.10]

Looking Back at the Avant Garde [2.Dec.09]

Buster Keaton: The Sound of His Obsession [3.Sep.09]

You are Living in the Golden Years of Cinema [24.Jul.09]

‘The City’: The Most Seen Documentary [6.Mar.09]

Ken Russell at the BBC [22.Jan.09]

Nary a Word: 'The Last Laugh' and 'The General' [4.Dec.08]

DIY: Takahiko Iimura [8.Oct.08]

American Film Theatre [18.Jul.08]

Reviews

Friday, April 27 2012

What They Meant by Madcap: 'Diplomaniacs', 'Kentucky Kernels' & 'The Rainmakers'

When it comes to cutting capers, these three films from Warner Archives are the right material.

Wednesday, March 28 2012

Boy, are These Natives Restless: 'Black Moon'

I'm willing to bet no movie of its time so brazenly aligned voodoo with black revolutionary politics.

Tuesday, March 13 2012

'Tall Story': Don't You Believe It

Rarely does a movie rub the audience's collective noses so vigorously into bright-eyed artifice without actually turning into a musical.

Tuesday, March 6 2012

Lust Among the Ruins: 'In the Cool of the Day'

This soaper is still watchable and visually engaging, for such a grand piece of silliness.

Thursday, March 1 2012

The Hot-Blooded Writer's Life, According to Hollywood: 'Youngblood Hawke'

Everyone admires Youngblood Hawke, who is always referred to by his full name, but of course it wouldn't be a story worth telling if this golden boy could sustain his success without hard lessons about over-reaching and losing touch and the wrong woman and the hollow nature of fame and money and yadda yadda.

More Reviews »

Spanish Surrealist, Meet Mickey Rooney: 'Treasure Train' [10.Feb.12]

Robert Altman Before and After 'M*A*S*H': 'Countdown' & 'Brewster McCloud' [8.Feb.12]

Murder Proposes, Perry Disposes: 'Perry Mason: Season Six' [25.Jan.12]

Debbie Reynolds in Multiple Musical Doses: 'Give a Girl a Break' & 'The Affairs of Dobie Gillis' [19.Jan.12]

Mid-Century Middle Class Jeopardy in 'Cry Terror' and 'Julie' [12.Oct.11]

'The Halliday Brand' Is a Tale of Hatred and Twisted Loyalties Befitting Greek Tragedy [9.Aug.11]

A Double Dose of Claude Chabrol: 'Just Before Nightfall' and 'Twist' [27.Jul.11]

'The Letter' Is the Only Surviving Talkie of Legendary Actress Jeanne Eagels [22.Jul.11]

Late '60s Pop Is Half Groovy, Half Gloomy In 'The Double Man' and 'Assignment to Kill' [21.Jul.11]

A Rack of Junk Makes Alloyed Joy in 'Wild and Weird' [20.Jul.11]

We All Get a Bit Defrocked in 'Priest of Love' [19.Jul.11]

'The Brass Legend': A Story of a Boy and His Hero and His Outlaw [29.Jun.11]

Be Careful Who You Wish For: 'The Associate' [24.Jun.11]

'Tiara Tahiti': The Natural vs. the Immoral in a Balmy Post-Colonial Postcard [22.Jun.11]

'Park Row' Is a Rhapsody on American Journalism -- With Fists [14.Jun.11]

'The Squall', 'New Morals for Old', 'The Prizefighter and the Lady' [31.May.11]

'The Lickerish Quartet' and Other Old School Erotica [5.May.11]

Even Misfires Give Off Sparks: 'The Unfinished Dance' and 'Devotion' [28.Apr.11]

Two Posers for the Memory Test: 'Queen of Hearts' & 'Return from the Ashes' [30.Mar.11]

The 'Walter Pidgeon' & Warren William' Collections [24.Mar.11]

'Our Hospitality': Buster Keaton's Story About Ingrained Hostility [4.Mar.11]

'Bodyguard': A Two-Fisted B Picture -- from Robert Altman? [3.Mar.11]

'Her Highness and the Bellboy', 'My Love Came Back' & 'The Bachelor Father' [1.Mar.11]

All the Lonely Women in 'Home Before Dark' and 'The Night Digger' [28.Feb.11]

In 'Vampire Circus', One Lust Feeds the Other [23.Feb.11]

The 'Man in a Suitcase' Is a Surly Bastard [15.Feb.11]

'Johnny Staccato': A Detective on the Downbeat [21.Jan.11]

He's a Hard-bitten Sea-dog; She's a Married Puritan: It's a 'Plymouth Adventure' [18.Jan.11]

Smiling Ghosts, Hidden Hands & Negro Stereotypes in 'Warner Bros. Horror/Mystery Double Features' [14.Jan.11]

Luise Rainer Spirals into Extravagant Tomfoolery in the 'Signature Collection: Luise Rainer' [12.Jan.11]

'Have Gun Will Travel: Season 5, Volume 1': More Adventures of the Literate Gunslinger [4.Jan.11]

Ginger Rogers Is Left Holding the Baby in 'Bachelor Mother' [15.Dec.10]

Cecil B. DeMille Goes to Hell with 'Madam Satan' [10.Dec.10]

The Morally Fuzzy Territory of Film Noir Lurks in the Shadows of 'Perry Mason: Season 5, Volume 2' [19.Nov.10]

'Eleven Men and a Girl' and a Mouth [16.Sep.10]

A Knight Without Armour In a Savage Land: 'Have Gun Will Travel: Season Four, Volume Two' [23.Jul.10]

A Gospel Calling: Mahalia Jackson Sings [14.Apr.10]

Have Gun - Will Travel: Season Four, Volume One [11.Mar.10]

Summer Storm [18.Dec.09]

The Barbara Stanwyck Show: Volume 1 [15.Dec.09]

The Buttercup Chain [18.Sep.09]

Paris 36 (Faubourg 36) [17.Aug.09]

British Sea Power: Man of Aran [8.Jun.09]

Under Full Sail: Silent Cinema on the High Seas [14.Apr.09]

Music for Airports & In the Ocean [3.Mar.09]

Honey West: The Complete Series [9.Jan.09]

Perry Mason: Season 3 - Vol. 2 [8.Jan.09]

Weird Tales & Edgar Allen Poe Collections [31.Oct.08]

Noriko's Dinner Table [13.Jun.08]

Before the Nickelodeon [6.Jun.08]

The Exquisite Short Films of Kihachiro Kawamoto [21.May.08]

Alain Delon: Five Film Collection [8.May.08]

Slave Widow [8.May.08]

The Last Supper [1.May.08]

Black Widow [11.Apr.08]

The Second Track [1.Apr.08]

The Dragon Painter [17.Mar.08]

Post-War Kurosawa: Eclipse Series 7 [14.Mar.08]

German Expressionism Collection [7.Mar.08]

Bruce Lee: The Early Years 1953/1955 [29.Feb.08]

The Untouchables: Season 1, Vol. 1 [8.Feb.08]

Eugenie de Sade [7.Feb.08]

Syndromes and a Century (Sang Sattawat) [22.Jan.08]

Lost and Found: The Harry Langdon Collection [18.Jan.08]

Route 66: Season 1, Vol. 1 [21.Dec.07]

Tales of Tomorrow: Collection Three - The 2nd Season Shows [5.Dec.07]

A Cottage on Dartmoor [6.Nov.07]

Looking Back at Anger, or, We Always Have Paris [2.Nov.07]

Discovering Cinema [29.Oct.07]

Fox Horror Classics Collection [22.Oct.07]

Stories of the American Puppet [28.Sep.07]

Snake Womans Curse [27.Sep.07]

L'Iceberg [25.Sep.07]

True Heart Susie [14.Sep.07]

Spring in a Small Town [10.Aug.07]

Malpertuis [2.Aug.07]

Who Can Kill a Child? (¿Quien Puede Matar a un Nino?) (1978) [16.Jul.07]

The One-Armed Swordsman [29.Jun.07]

Tyrone Power: The Swashbuckler Box Set (1949) [29.May.07]

Regular Lovers (2005) [21.May.07]

The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (2005) [4.May.07]

Blogs

Friday, May 18 2012

Possessed By the Devil: 'The Shrine'

Creepy and Well Paced.

Friday, May 18 2012

It Works: 'Pick a Star'

Light-headed...with Laurel and Hardy, too!

Wednesday, May 16 2012

'It All Came True': Sentimentality with Sass

It All Came True doesn't fit any particular category of movie, and as a result you hardly know what's going to happen as one thing leads to another in a finely balanced mix of comic, melodramatic and sentimental tones leading up to the big show.