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.
Dare to Compare Hideo Gosha’s ‘Violent Streets’ with Today’s Spandex Superheroes and John Wick

Dare to Compare Hideo Gosha’s ‘Violent Streets’ with Today’s Spandex Superheroes and John Wick

The Japanese-ness of the yakuza cycle in films like Violent Streets connects with the era’s newly violent, high-octane gangster movies functioning as national parables.

Melodrama and Mystification from ‘Moment to Moment’

Melodrama and Mystification from ‘Moment to Moment’

Made as a lush vehicle for Jean Seberg, Moment to Moment is an eye-catching, brain-teasing, and utterly bonkers melodrama that draws comparisons to Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

Hideo Gosha’s ‘Samurai Wolf’ Is a Man of His Sword

Hideo Gosha’s ‘Samurai Wolf’ Is a Man of His Sword

Hideo Gosha’s Samurai Wolf films contain scenes and elements that feel like nods to Akira Kurosawa.

Love Tragic and Stars’ Magic in Crime Drama ‘Martin Roumagnac’

Love Tragic and Stars’ Magic in Crime Drama ‘Martin Roumagnac’

Despite starring Marlene Dietrich and Jean Gabin, Georges Lacombe’s 1946 crime drama, Martin Roumagnac isn’t famous or appreciated as it should be.

Unpredictable Crime Drama ‘Rio’ Is Glamorous and Treacherous

Unpredictable Crime Drama ‘Rio’ Is Glamorous and Treacherous

Rio belongs to no single genre but exists in its own world of Hollywood tomfoolery while reflecting the unsettled zeitgeist of a non-American world that’s glamorous and treacherous.

Duras, Marguerite Duras: Two 1970s Musings from the Cinematic Mist

Duras, Marguerite Duras: Two 1970s Musings from the Cinematic Mist

The women in Marguerite Duras’ India Song and Baxter, Vera Baxter present images and rumors to the world but retain a core of adamantine mystery.

György Fehér’s Brooding Hungarian Film ‘Twilight’

György Fehér’s Brooding Hungarian Film ‘Twilight’

To some extent, György Fehér’s murder mystery, Twilight feels like a brooding film about Communist hangover, about an inability to breathe.

Life Is Killing Us: Metaphysics of Facts and Form in Michael Haneke’s Films

Life Is Killing Us: Metaphysics of Facts and Form in Michael Haneke’s Films

Michael Haneke’s films partly alienate viewers by demonstrating that his characters feel alienated from their lives, cultures, and themselves, so one form of alienation breeds another.

Suffering in Silents: Two 1922 Melodramas from Frank Borzage

Suffering in Silents: Two 1922 Melodramas from Frank Borzage

Frank Borzage, king of silent film melodrama, shows how it’s done with Back Pay‘s tale of redemption and the James Oliver Curwood-inspired The Valley of Silent Men.

Fregonese’s ‘Marco Polo’ Traveled a Twisty Road to Production

Fregonese’s ‘Marco Polo’ Traveled a Twisty Road to Production

Hugo Fregonese’s 1962 Italian-French production of Marco Polo is a film whose history is more twisty than the spaghetti Marco Polo discovered in China.

The DIY Effect on Self-Funded Director Juleen Compton’s Dramas

The DIY Effect on Self-Funded Director Juleen Compton’s Dramas

Juleen Compton’s little-known ’60s films, Truffaut-effected Stranded and Mekas’-affirming The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean, have been lovingly restored thanks to her work ethic in a completely different field.

‘Secret of the Incas’ Is Finally Exhumed from Hollywood’s Tomb

‘Secret of the Incas’ Is Finally Exhumed from Hollywood’s Tomb

The 1954 Hollywood adventure film Secret of the Incas may have a whiff of Indiana Jones about it to contemporary viewers, but it’s better than expected for a film that’s almost been buried in a tomb.

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