Friday, May 11 2012
Elective Affinities at the 2012 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
The Full Frame Film Festival is a rich collection of “elective affinities” that forces us to ponder the relationships between stories placed side-by-side, like so many books on a shelf.
Fat, Drunk, and Stupid: The Inside Story Behind the Making of Animal House
In 1976 the creators of National Lampoon, America’s most popular humor magazine, decided to make a movie.
Friday, May 4 2012
Hot Stuff: The 2012 PopMatters Summer Movie Preview (August)
Bourne and a bunch of ancient action movie icons wrap up the annual popcorn movie march, not with a whimper, but (hopefully) with a box office bang.
Thursday, May 3 2012
Hot Stuff: The PopMatters Summer 2012 Movie Preview (July)
It's a battle of the box office biggest superheros as July sees Batman take on a new webslinger for artistic and commercial bragging rights.
Wednesday, May 2 2012
Hot Stuff: The PopMatters Summer 2012 Movie Preview (June)
June arrives on full film fire, with a new one from Pixar, a look at a Presidential monster killer, and Ridley Scott's return to a certain extraterrestrial franchise...
Tuesday, May 1 2012
Hot Stuff: The 2012 PopMatters Summer Movie Preview (May)
It begins with a bang, as one of the most highly anticipated comic book movies battles beleaguered vampires, underwater aliens, and the return of Agents J & K for May's monetary consideration.
Wednesday, April 25 2012
Feel…Heartbeat, Feel: An Interview with the Director of ‘Marley’
The danger with any work on Bob Marley is that it can so quickly slip into just so much spiritual hoo hah; but in a way, it almost has to, or it’s not giving the story it’s fair due.
Tuesday, April 24 2012
Tomorrow Will Be Kinder: An Interview with Greg Wells of ‘The Hunger Games’ Soundtrack
The superstar producer just helped helm the mega-selling Hunger Games soundtrack, and tells PopMatters all about its creation, including how he never actually knew about the series until right before he started working on the music.
Friday, April 13 2012
Don’t Feed the Id: ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ As a Psychological Fable
But one can never be free from their darker, primal side, not really. Seymour's passive attempt to escape the plant almost ends in tragedy, as it tries to devour Audrey while Seymour is away.
Thursday, April 12 2012
The Guy in the Green Socks: Interview with ‘Damsels in Distress’ Director Whit Stillman
If Damsels in Distress has any one theme to conveys that no matter how eccentric, affected, or even arrogant an individual may seem, their feelings and struggles are the same as ours. Director Whit Stillman talks to PopMatters about creating his newest universe.
Wednesday, April 11 2012
Monster Mashups: ‘The Monster Squad’ Turns 25
By examining the legacy of this unique horror hybrid and its ties to the classic Universal Monsters on the eve of the film's 25th anniversary, we learn a bit more why monster movies have always thrilled us all.
Friday, April 6 2012
Survival of the Fittest: An Interview with ‘The Hunter’ Director, Daniel Nettheim
Shot in the wilds of Tasmania, Nettheim's 'eco-noir', starring Oscar-nominee Willem Dafoe, is at turns brooding, spare and eerily beautiful.
Tuesday, April 3 2012
‘Margaret’ and Me: The Agony and Ecstasy of Watching Lisa Cohen
We need to talk about Margaret, a movie for cinephiles that inspires the most cinephilic behaviors imaginable. Kenneth Lonergan's masterpiece is equally cinematic and personal.
Friday, March 30 2012
David Lynch’s Dark Doubles: A Shadow Journey Into the Heart of the Filmmaker
In Lynchian noirs dream and waking states bleed into one another until fantasy and reality are indistinguishable, until the very distinction between the two is rendered meaningless. The result is an effectively enthralling cinematic universe.
Tuesday, March 27 2012
Death to Boring Vampires: The Life and Death Antidote to Contemporary Vampire Culture
Who else is bored with vampires? Guillermo del Toro’s Cronos rescues the vampire myth from boring romanticism.
Thursday, March 15 2012
Revisiting ‘The Bodyguard’: A Romantic Blockbuster for Adults
The legacy of the The Bodyguard, beyond the greatness of Whitney, the vision of Kasdan, and the wisdom of Costner, is that it's possible to please the public and produce profit on a massive scale by intelligently presenting the complexities of adult love.
Monday, March 12 2012
Zealot Zombies vs. Apolitical Vampires: Bruce LaBruce’s Political Enlivenment of the Undead
Bruce LaBruce's pornographic zombie films are politically and artistically engaged in ways in which too few contemporary horror narratives are.
Monday, February 27 2012
Learning From Vampires: High Stakes Vampire Literature
What does society's fascination with vampire tales tell us about men, women and relationships? It's time to take one more look.
Thursday, February 23 2012
Charles Dickens 200: Great Expectations: Bright Hope and Dark Resignation
Where we are now, in 2012, is on a darker plain especially for the large "Underclass". Perhaps Dickens can light our way?
Friday, February 17 2012
Love, Death and Bananas: The Early Woody Allen
Woody Allen's early career is a window into his development both as a filmmaker and as an artist. Rarely are an early filmmaker's works so rewarding, where even the most lighthearted farces can be poignant and brilliant, even for a moment.
