Tag: cinephile
From Feathers to Fields: Our 10 Favourite Comedies, 1930-1945
It is a mystery that plagues pop psychologists and culturists alike. What happened to the American sense of humour? American film comedy, which dominated the world in the silent era with towering figures like Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd, took a few years to figure out the new synch sound medium in the late ’20s, and…
Ana Lily Amirpour’s “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night”
This is a little embarrassing. As a self-proclaimed Jim Jarmusch fan, I was very eager to see his latest movie, a refreshingly quirky take on the vampire genre. I even wrote a rather long piece on Only Lovers Left Alive, which you can read here. So did I have egg on my face when I…
American Sniper: Chris Kyle, Clint Eastwood, American Manhood
American Sniper, an account of the life and times of Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper), the most lethal sniper in American history, bears the classic marks of a Clint Eastwood film. Eastwood’s career, intentionally or unintentionally, has always been deeply entangled with ideas of masculinity – ideas which cumulatively seem to suggest an overarching vision of…
Crime and Punishment in Lav Diaz’s ‘Norte, The End Of History’
Michel Lipkes’ 2011 movie Malaventura runs 66 minutes and can feel like an eternity. Lav Diaz’s Norte, the End of History, runs 250 minutes, and it too, can feel like an eternity. But you know that old saying, not all eternities are created equal. Lipkes’ movie comes out of the “slow cinema” tradition, and its…
Reviewing ‘Foxcatcher’: Bennett Miller Does It The Old Fashioned Way
Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher does not feel like a 2014 movie. The drama chronicling the bizarre relationship that developed between the enormously wealthy and enigmatic John du Pont and a pair of world champion wrestlers, Dave and Mark Schultz, feels much more like a throwback to the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, when films moved at a slower…