Pablo Larraín’s ‘El Conde’ Dilutes the Real Horror of Pinochet
Pablo Larraín’s fascist vampire analogy ‘El Conde’ somehow trivializes the Pinochet monstrosity at its core.
Film
We All Must Reckon with the ‘MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios’
Corporate villainy! Creative tyranny! Dangerous foes and tough allies! MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios blasts the superhero movie universe with the studio’s massive, messy history.
Fluid Dynamics: Sexual Displacement in Billy Wilder’s ‘The Apartment’
Billy Wilder’s most savage of American comedies, The Apartment, skewers corporate culture and patriarchal structures while challenging viewers to read its spills and overflows as more than just accidents.
‘Expend4bles’ Is a Convoy of Clichés
The only thing that salvages Scott Waugh’s unpronounceable Expend4bles from the usual action film clichés is the franchise’s new star, Jason Statham
The Dance and the Duel in Silent Epic ‘The Spanish Dancer’
Somewhere amid the swigging and carousing in restored silent film The Spanish Dancer it’s love at first eyeball for Don Cesar and Maritana
Actor Aidan Gillen on His Role in Noir Love Letter to Dublin, ‘Barber’
Irish actor Aidan Gillen talks about his lead role, and the freedom given to him to define his character, in Fintan Connolly’s Dublin-set modern noir, Barber.
Camp and the Hyperreal Telenovela in Almodóvar’s ‘All About My Mother’
In All About My Mother, Pedro Almodóvar leverages hyperreality through a camp lens to narrate a story that is as rich in theatricality as it is in the nuanced emotionality of the dream.
A Woman’s War Is Never Done: Wojciech Has’ ‘How to Be Loved’
A telling scene in Wojciech Has’ How to Be Loved comments on how a woman’s viewpoint must be injected into male-created art without permission.
The Pull of Christian Sparkes’ Mystery ‘The King Tide’
Director Christian Sparkes and actors Clayne Crawford and Alix West Lefler discuss the mystery The King Tide during its World Premiere at TIFF 2023.
12 Totally Strange and Underseen Animated Films
Well into the ’80s, animated filmmakers attempted to create something even stranger than the X-rated cartoon: the PG-13 cartoon.
FrightFest 2023: ‘Cobweb’ Tells a Story Trapped Within Itself
If we listen closely enough to the knocking on the wall, we can hear the anguished whispers of a stronger story caught in the web of Cobweb’s weaker one.
Budd Boetticher’s ‘Ranown Westerns’ Are Complex and Ambiguous
The heroes and villains in Bud Boetticher’s Ranown Westerns are less mighty opposites than mighty complements.