The Historical-Reflective in Hitchcock’s ‘The Lady Vanishes’
Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes depicts a variety of cultural deaths as they were happening. No small feat for a light comedy with sex-farce undertones.
Film Feature
Tod Browning’s Notorious “Freak Films” Leave a Lingering Aftertaste
Tod Browning’s macabre obsessions with making “freak films” may at first seem distasteful and exploitative, but their aftertaste induces food for thought.
Carnivorous French Provocateur Catherine Breillat on ‘Last Summer’
Filmmaking should be carnivorous, made from “the flesh of the actors” says French provocateur Catherine Breilla as she discusses her thriller, Last Summer.
Greek Weird Wave’s Absurdism and Tragedy
Greek Weird Wave films are existential with a hefty dose of absurdism, surrealism and tragedy, where alienated protagonists struggle in a meaningless milieu.
David Fincher’s ‘The Killer’ Is a Deadly Satire of the Corporate World
You can read David Fincher’s The Killer as a story about a murderer, or you can see it as the satire of our pathetic little existence that it really is.
BFI London Film Festival 2023: Critics’ Chat
BFI London Film Festival’s most impressionable films of the year, industry strikes, awards season, and the shoe-leather journalism of a film festival critic.
Martin Scorsese’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Shows Genocide Is (also) a Private Affair
Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is another storytelling masterclass and examination of 20th-century American histories of greed and destruction.
American History X’s Eerily Prescient Take on Today’s Neo-Nazis
Tony Kaye’s 1998 crime film American History X connect today’s Neo-Nazi hatred back to poisons long carried by Americans, dating back to the country’s original sin of slavery.
The Stars in ‘And the Band Played On’ Almost Outshine Its Message
The starry cast in Aaron Spelling’s adaptation of Randy Shilts’ And the Band Played On makes this message film a Hollywood spectacle as much as a work of activist pop art.
Psychological Thriller ‘Saltburn’ Is a Feast for Depraved Eyes
To describe Saltburn as a sexed-up The Talented Mr. Ripley for millennials would be to reduce this aesthetically and symbolically complex film to a two-bit aphorism, but it’s a good start.
The Queer World of Gregg Araki’s Films
Campy, surreal, and even “trauma”-inducing, the queer world of Gregg Araki’s smart, challenging, and colorfully eccentric films seduce.
‘Early Shorts of the French New Wave’ Breaks Through Stolid Filmmaking
These 18 short films in Early Shorts of the French New Wave showcase a consistency of personal expression, handheld style, and filming in the street.