How Should We Remember the Controversial Rom-Com ‘(500) Days of Summer’?
The debate over whether the 2009 rom-com (500) Days of Summer is sexist is valid, but the filmmaking and acting are superior to its dull contemporaries.
romance
Powell & Pressburger’s Radical and Ravishing ‘The Red Shoes’ Performs the Dark Side of Devotion
Powell & Pressburger’s film version of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Red Shoes” asks, is Art worth dying for?
Time Is Love in Italian Romance Comedy ‘Generation 56k’
Italian romance comedy Generation 56k toys with the timeline between instant and delayed gratification in the eras of the early internet and social media.
Sundance 2022: ‘Am I OK?’ Is OK Coming-Out Romantic Comedy
Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne’s coming-out Am I OK?, like its heroine, is messy, awkward, and eternally hopeful in the face of despair.
How Masculinity Fails in Jane Campion’s ‘The Power of the Dog’
Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog undermines “toxic masculinity” – a term that evokes the existence of alternative masculinities.
When a Body Meets a Body: Frankenstein’s Daughter Acts Out Her 1950s Issues
Frankenstein’s daughter, in modern parlance, is some kind of proto-“trans” creation of a woman’s mind within a patched-together male body. This is heady stuff.
Subversive AIDS Film ‘Parting Glances’ Was Quite Unlike Its Contemporaries
In a brave and subversive move that appealed to mainstream audiences yet was undeniably queer, “AIDS film” Parting Glances used barbed comedy to convey tragedy.
The Sexual Politics in Sexy Rudolph Valentino’s Silent Film, ‘The Sheik’
Eyebrows tilting and nostrils flaring and emanating pheromones of intoxicating effluvia, Foreigners like Valentino’s Sheik had un-American sex all over Hollywood.
Stephen Park Finally Gets His Big Close-Up in ‘The French Dispatch’
Stephen Park has been brought into Wes Anderson’s exclusive filmmaking troupe for The French Dispatch in a role that was written specifically for him.
BFI LFF: ‘Mothering Sunday’ Laments Grief’s Tenacious Hold
In Mothering Sunday, playing at the BFI London Film Festival 2021, the memories of grief and tragedy distract a novelist from writing her new thriller.
Director Harry Macqueen on His Empathetic Love Story ‘Supernova’
Director Harry Macqueen talks about working with dementia charities and his hope that ‘Supernova’ will be a force for change in the end-of-life debate.
Classism Rolls Through Classic Film ‘A Place in the Sun’ Like a Noirish Fog
A lyrical ode to Hollywood beauties Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor, the An American Tragedy-inspired A Place in the Sun casts a long noirish shadow.