Michael Curtis Nelson

Recent

Film

Hitchcock's 'Blackmail' and the Birth of the British Talkies

Originally conceived as a silent film, Blackmail was quickly converted to sound, making it the first British talkie. To accommodate theaters that were not equipped for sound, it was reissued as a silent film. The differences in the two versions are here compared.

Michael Curtis Nelson

Books

Huddled Masses and New Media: 'How the Other Half Looks'

How America's ur-ghetto, New York's Lower East Side, changed the way we see ourselves.

Books

'Voices from the Rust Belt': Dispatches from one of America’s Most Misunderstood Regions

The daughters and sons of the embattled, resilient US heartland map out its personal, cultural, and historical landscape.

Books

Pause and Effect: How to Stop Jumping to Conclusions

A sociologist offers hope for finding better solutions to complex problems by asking better questions about causation.

Reviews

'Vampyr' Is the Best Vampire Movie You’ve Never Seen

The Criterion Collection's new Blu-ray release probably won't add Vampyr to the October cable rotation, but it will help you appreciate this strange film and the alternate vampire tradition it represents.

Books

Shelter from the Norm: Umbrellas Aren’t Always What They Seem in ‘Brolliology’

Mary Poppins, Mrs. Gamp, Egyptian deities, a Japanese umbrella spirit, and a supporting cast of hundreds of brollies fill Marion Rankine's lively history.

Reviews

The Complicated Story of Race and Rock 'n' Roll in the '60s

In Just Around Midnight, Jack Hamilton explains what happened over the course of the '60s that turned rock 'n' roll white.

Books

'The Rhapsodes': When an Aesthetic Approach to Film Criticism Was Novel

It’s hard to imagine now, but in the '40s it was a daring thing to champion film. These four critics did just that, and did it very well.

Reviews

Night Riders and Matinee Movies: The Relationship Between the KKK and American Film

This book could not be timelier, given the nativist and racist rhetoric inflaming discourse among America's Republican Party presidential hopefuls.

Books

'The Annotated Poe' Is So Thoroughly Poe

Kevin J. Hayes' thorough analysis includes backgrounds on when and where each poem was first published, its contemporary reception, and critical assessments since.

Reviews

There's No Resting in Peace in Roger Corman's 'Premature Burial'

So burdened is Ray Milland by the trappings of horror convention that you marvel he doesn’t smother on the spot, even though he is safely above ground.

Reviews

'A Year in Champagne' Is All Fruit and No Acidity

There's plenty of dazzle but little depth in this champagne documentary.

Reviews

Revolvers, Redemption, and Yasujiro Ozu’s Silent Film Experimentation With Crime Drama

Like Jean-Luc Godard and other French directors who were later influenced by the American crime film tradition, Japan's own Yasujiro Ozu made the genre his own.

Reviews

'The Wild Angels' Lays Out the Rules of the Biker Film

Roger Corman's 1966 film is the storytelling legacy that works of cinema and television such as Sons of Anarchy draw from.

Reviews

'Through a Lens Darkly' Should Have Let the Pictures Tell the Story

Through a Lens Darkly surveys the often hidden or forgotten history of African Americans as photographic subjects as well as photographers.

Reviews

All of the Citizens of 'Nuclear Nation' Are Forced to Be Expats

Like spent fuel rods, refugees of the Fukushima nuclear disaster are handled delicately, considered toxic, and unwelcome anywhere they go.

Reviews

'Uranium Drive-In' Reveals How Fake Facts Shape Reality

Suzan Beraza's documentary captures the contours and stubborn endurance of myths about uranium mining, as well as the evidence of their tenuous connection to reality.

Film

The Golden Woods of 'Without Warning' Can't Kick the Camp

"It was a sci-fi and we could ham it up, so we did—and it was great,” Tarah Nutter says about Without Warning. "Ham it up" fits the film but "great", not so much.

Film

Have Our 'Hearts and Minds' Really Changed?

There are lessons aplenty about Vietnam in Hearts and Minds—it's a shame we still haven’t learned them.

Film

A Tree Grows in Stoningham: 'All That Heaven Allows'

There’s no scenery chewing in All That Heaven Allows, just very eloquent décor.

Film

'The Freshman' Is Remarkably, if Silently, Contemporary

The grand-daddy of college comedies, The Freshman makes a compelling case for the relevance of silent film.

Film

'To Chris Marker, An Unsent Letter' Has Insufficient Postage

Collaborators and admirers provide an enlightening, but at times opaquely idiosyncratic assessment of the maverick French filmmaker.

Reviews

These Gum-Snapping, Big-Haired Valley Girls Just Want to Have Fun in 'Night of the Comet'

Valley Girls Sam and Reggie’s skills make them much more adaptable to a future that values spontaneity and spunk over brains and bookishness.

Reviews

Home Ownership Is Hell, Over and Over Again in 'The Amityville Horror Trilogy'

A Dutch colonial on Long Island has become the nexus for all the fears and anxieties attendant on the cornerstone of the American Dream: the family home.

Reviews

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Features

29 Black Music Documentaries for Black History Month 2020: #2 'The Apollo'

England's Postwar Paranoia Creeps in the Shadows of Three Film-Noirs

Perfect Harmony: An Interview with Legendary Vocal Group the Waters

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PM Picks

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Pop Ten

29 Black Music Documentaries for Black History Month 2020: #2 'The Apollo'

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