‘Route One/USA’ Drives Along History and Memory
In Robert Kramer’s documentary Route One/USA a fictional character rides shotgun in this road trip history and memory.
Michael Barrett
Michael Barrett works in a public library. For more than 20 years, he wrote a monthly video column in the San Antonio Express News stressing classic and foreign films. His national publications include Video Watchdog, Nostalgia Digest and Retro Cinema. He's also written scripts that still await their destiny.
‘Sirius’ Casts a Glittering Eye on WWII Hungary
The not-so-subtle commentary on Hungary’s German and Italian allies, disguised within a lavish, escapist, romantic fantasy, is only one of the surprising things about Sirius.
‘He Who Gets Slapped’ Gets Its Slap-Happy Revenge
Lou Chaney-starring He Who Gets Slapped gives viewers a macabre melodrama with a taste of serious literature – until it ends in bloody revenge.
‘Promise Her Anything’ Leaves Us Holding the Baby
In Hollywood’s eternal battle between the puritan and the prurient, Promise Her Anything shows the puritan still holds the whip. Oh, baby.
The Best 1970s Horror Movies for Halloween
The fears 1970s horror movies face are no less so now, but they create just enough distance from our reality this Halloween that we can at least peer through our fingers to watch them.
‘The Devil’s Bride’ Is Like a Lithuanian Teletubbies
The Devil’s Bride is surely one of the most bizarre films from the Iron Curtain; as hallucinatory as anything this side of Teletubbies.
French Political Thrillers Deliver Never-Ending Paranoia
In these two political thrillers from Henri Verneuil, neither is above faking out the viewer and both are obsessed with the architecture of the modern city.
‘Cairo Station’ Jumbles Sex, Politics, and Noir
With bustling filming and moments of hybrid musical lyricism, the Nasser-era Cairo Station is half neorealism and half noir melodrama.
Jiří Barta’s Weird and Scary Stop-Motion Animation
The Stop-motion dystopia in Jiří Barta’s The Pied Piper combines the horrors of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari with Metropolis, as filtered through medieval carving techniques.
The Big Heat’s Resting Gun
Scenes of a resting gun open and close Fritz Lang’s vigilante film noir The Big Heat, but there are no silenced weapons of any sort in between.
Weimar Comedies Have Us Laughing on the Precipice
Did Weimar cinema predict Germany’s yearning for a strong leader? Or was it largely the escapist nonsense everyone else was making?
‘The Glass Web’ Succumbs to the Seduction of the TV Control Room
In film noir The Glass Web, the powers wielded in a television control room reveal 1950s attitudes in the entertainment industry.