An Insolent Heart Hath Damned Thee: Original Sin at Miller’s Crossing

John Turturro as Bernie Bernbaum, a light-skinned, ark hair man in a dark suit and light shirt sitting in an ornamental armchair in a large room. Bernie is smiling at his conversation partner, who is not depicted in the shot

|Kevin Obsatz| I have a confession to make. I don’t know that I’ve ever “liked” a Coen Brothers movie on the first viewing. Possibly Raising Arizona—but I was probably only half paying attention to that one, as an eight or nine-year-old, on VHS. I doubt my parents would… Continue reading

Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the Hat

Theatrical poster of Coen Brothers’ film “Miller’s Crossing.”

|Lucas Hardwick| I’m a bald guy, so when the temperatures drop and there’s a perpetual nip in the air, I often find the top of my head gets a little uncomfortably cool. While confined to the contentment of my own home, where the dress code is free of the hassle of coordination and everyone is at liberty… Continue reading

Paranoia, Failure, and Female Representation: Brian De Palma’s Blow Out

Jack, a young light-skinned man with dark hair, and Sally, a young woman with blonde curly hair, are standing on a train starting platform facing each other, with side characters and trains in the background.

|Penny Folger| “There was no bigger disaster than Blow Out,” reminisces director Brian De Palma on the reception his film received when it was originally released in 1981. It’s a film that, 43 years later, is held in much higher esteem, even cited by Quentin Tarantino as… Continue reading

Do You Hear What I Hear?: The Salacious Self-Flagellation of Brian De Palma’s Blow Out

Medium close-up of a ponderous John Travolta (as soundman Jack Terry) in a maroon collared shirt leaning over with a cigarette in his right hand in the foreground, thumb pressed against the forehead. In the background are film reels and various editing equipment.

|Chris Polley| A man takes a photograph, inspiring another to write a story, inspiring another to make a film, inspiring another to…make another film. This is how it works now, losing the magic and mystery of folktales passed down generation upon generation via oral storytelling but gaining the benefits of … Continue reading

A Whale of a Tale: Béla Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies

A slow walk through the small town.

|Luke Mosher| Béla Tarr’s slow cinema masterpiece Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) is a bleak and beautiful experience. It is exactly the kind of film that repertory theaters like Trylon were designed for. During the nearly 2.5 hour run time, you can’t check your phone or get distracted by your dog; you must sit in the theater and reckon with it… Continue reading

Dearest Chinatown: The Intensity of Faye Dunaway

Faye Dunaway in character as Evelyn Mulwray in Chinatown. Evelyn is a light-skinned woman with curly chin-long hair and thin eyebrows. She looks into the distance unimpressed, wearing a grey dress suit and hat.

|John Blair| At 6:14 am on February 27, 2006, Faye Dunaway called the producer of a documentary on her life. When the call went to voicemail, Dunaway started immediately on a breathless two-minute monologue, touching on everything from her personal relationships to her disappointment in how her current films were sold… Continue reading

Infinite Jake

Poster for Chinatown, showing a feminine face emerging from an ornamental cloud of smoke coming from a man's cigar. The letters "Chinatown" are prominently features in red against a pale yellow background at the bottom of the image

|Abbie Phelps| Los Angeles, California, 1922. Evelyn Cross is fifteen years old. Noah Cross, her father, has yet to recover from the death of his wife. In her absence, his grief has come close to consuming him. Evelyn, his daughter, makes his meals and lays his clothes out for him in the morning…. Continue reading

Branded to Kill: The Graceful Aging of Disarray 

A black and white image of an adult man with dark hair wearing sunglasses

|Yuval Klein| With action, slapstick, deadpan machismo, a jazzy soundtrack, and avant-garde edits, the tone of Branded to Kill is set in an extensive and superbly shot shootout scene, in which our protagonist, a “highly ranked” assassin named Gorô, is ambushed. With him, an anxious and formerly ranked acquaintance… Continue reading

Meet Sydney: On Paul Thomas Anderson’s Hard Eight (1996)

Philip Baker Hall with cigarette dangling from his mouth

|MH Rowe| Some films are short stories; others are novels. The difference is not a question of length or running time, for even a novel can have the soul of a short story, while a short story can be a novel in miniature. A novel must possess, as an essential characteristic… Continue reading

I Lived It: The Joy of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure

Paul Reubens as Pee Wee, a light-skinned man with short, light brown hair. He is shown from the back looking at himself in the mirror of a bathroom, wearing a face contraption the lifts his nose tip an upper lip.

|Alex Kies| Pee-wee’s Big Adventure plays at the Trylon Cinema from Thursday, January 11th, through Sunday, January 14th. Visit trylon.org for tickets and more information. I went to college with a guy who, among other eccentricities, would periodically dress up as Pee-wee Herman and go through his whole day, classes,… Continue reading