Batman Returns’ Delirious Psychosexual Tension
The stitches, the shadows, the skin and the other psychosexual tension and animalistic identities of Batman Returns.
crime
‘It Was Just an Accident’ Hides Life’s Extremes in Plain Sight
Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or-winning revenge thriller, It Was Just an Accident, slices into memory and the desire for revenge with a double-edged knife.
‘Streets of Fire’ as Global Myth
Streets of Fire boldly rejects conventional genre boundaries, merging action, rock opera, MTV video, and neo-noir into an audacious and stylized urban myth that resonates globally.
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.
‘Los Golfos’ Returns from Franco-Censored Purgatory
Carlos Saura’s once censored Los Golfos exists in a purgatory between the relatively plot-less freedom of some neorealist films and the excesses of delinquent youth melodrama.
‘Keep Quiet’ Pits Inner Peace Against Social Turmoil
Crime drama Keep Quiet may seem abrupt and pared-back, but there’s confidence and depth in its study of inner peace amidst social turmoil.
‘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.
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.
‘Ghost in the Shell’ Haunts for a Second Life
For those who appreciate rich world-building, cyberpunk aesthetics, and speculative philosophy, Rupert Sanders’ Ghost in the Shell remains a rare cinematic treat, not a betrayal of its source material.
‘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.
Hard Ticket to Hawaii’s Accidental Feminism
In his explicitly women-objectifying film, Hard Ticket to Hawaii, Andy Sidaris has accidentally created situations that demand feminist narrative solutions.
The Thunderbolts Put Up a Fight for Teamwork
What Thunderbolts communicates about teamwork taps into one of the greatest social science mysteries of contemporary history: the nature of individual-group relation.