‘A Man and a Woman’ and a Dizzy 1960s Romance
Claude Lelouch’s hugely popular A Man and a Woman was criticized for its sleek, chic, starstruck, pie-eyed, romantic wish fulfillment. Yet therein lay its radicalism.
film history
Jack Benny Tries to Be a Lothario in These Saucy 1930s Comedies
It’s absurd to think of Jack Benny or his characters as lotharios, but he does his best in these 1930s saucy, censor-restricted comedies.
Scorsese’s World Cinema Project #5 Carries Serenity and Chaos
All the films in Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project No. 5 showcase filmmakers whose output deserves restoration, but Kummatty offers the most direct and unapologetic sensual pleasures.
Why Found Footage Horror Movies Keep Creeping Back
In an era when cameras dictate and distort our perception, found-footage horror movies keep creeping back into our never-wholly-real, uncanny world.
‘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.
‘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.
Horror Movies and the Art of Dreaded Speculation
With rumored horror movies never made, and unrevealed scenes left on the cutting room floor, the unknown breeds speculation, and that speculation becomes its own horror subgenre.
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.
Red Westerns of the Socialist East
The Red Westerns made in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe appropriated the tropes of the Western to critique America’s mythologies while advancing their own.
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 Art of ‘Cruising’
Cruising, once denounced as homophobic pulp, is now being reassessed as a daring exploration of performance, identity, and the psychic costs of repression.
Erich Von Stroheim and Cecil B. DeMille’s Fetishistic Films
Erich Von Stroheim’s films fetishised a scandalous poke to the public’s eye, whereas Cecile B. DeMille’s films obsessed over middle-class verities.