|Devin Warner| Note: There are many links to Muppet related material that I am referencing. You do not need to see them to understand this piece but should watch them because they are all delightful. The Muppet Movie starts with the camera descending into the swamp as we… Continue reading
|Dan Howard| Dom DeLuise, James Coburn, Madeline Khan, Telly Savalas, Carol Kane, Paul Williams, Milton Berle, Elliot Gould, Edgar Bergen (and Charlie), Bob Hope, Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, Mel Brooks, Cloris Lechman, and Orson Welles! Talk about an… Continue reading
|Ben Jarman| We always went to Taco Bell for lunch in a 1989 Honda Civic. Four or five other teens were stuffed in the car, some sitting on laps, just to flee class and get a bite to eat. Steak soft tacos and bean burritos were my thing, but I was there for something else: my classmate… Continue reading
|Chris Polley| My spouse often teases me for being drawn to films where “nothing really happens and then the bottom drops out from the main character’s life.” She’s not wrong. After all, right now, I have Eyes Without a Face, Sirāt, and Mikey & Nicky in my top four on Letterboxd… Continue reading
| Sophie Durbin | Wanda plays at the Trylon Cinema from Sunday, July 26th, through Tuesday, July 28th. For tickets, showtimes, and other series information, visit trylon.org. MR. DENNIS: You don’t want anything, you won’t have anything. You don’t have anything, you’re nothing. Might as well be dead. You’re not… Continue reading
|Dan McCabe| “Maybe a man’s name doesn’t matter all that much,” Orson Welles says towards the end of F for Fake (1973) as he gazes upon Chartres Cathedral, which he describes as a great, unsigned masterpiece. F for Fake asks questions about the importance (or lack thereof)… Continue reading
|Cole Seidl| The 10th annual Nitrate Picture Show in Rochester, New York didn’t announce a single film of its program before the festival began on June 4th. They didn’t need to—tickets had sold out within a week of going on sale in January. People, it seems, didn’t care what the program… Continue reading
|Rachel Buhman| “You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all” rings out as the most clangy criticism of rom-coms. Funny enough, it’s one of film’s most famous romantic characters, Kathy Selden, that utters those words in Singin’ in the Rain. Just before she admits to actually seeing a few of her… Continue reading
|Dan Howard| Oftentimes, it feels like younger people have been told all our lives by our elders to “never get old” and to appreciate the time we have while we have it. When we see how some people become more cynical with age, it lessens any desire to get that old. I believe we’ve all had our fair share of encountering jaded folks… Continue reading
|Finn Odum| I frequently dream about driving a car that’s lost control. In these dreams, the driver is missing, and I am left trying to navigate a vehicle from the backseat. Usually, the car is in peril. I’m flying down a hill. Another car is in the way. I’m back in Milwaukee, driving down… Continue reading
|Lucas Hardwick| ***Spoiler alert for The Thing and The Thing and a few other films*** When I was a kid my dad always said that if there was ever a World War III, he wanted the first bomb to drop on our house. He said it was because he… Continue reading
|Riccardo Williams| John Carpenter’s The Thing, released in 1982, has since achieved the status of horror legend, in many ways eclipsing the book it’s based on, Who Goes There written by John W. Campbell Jr. There’s a strong argument to be made that it overtakes the previous adaptation… Continue reading
|Ryan Sanderson| Before writing about The World’s End, I embarked on my own nostalgic voyage, revisiting three of my favorite films from an earlier chapter of my life. Shaun of the Dead came out my sophomore year of high school. The summer between high school and… Continue reading
|Rachel Buhman| The following is to be read in that classic movie trailer voice, you know the one. In a world where an alternative girl is just a pair of glasses and a book, Diane Lane dares to be a stain. Sitting down for Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains brings a buzzing excitement that anticipates the rush of something new… Continue reading
|Mimi Huelster| The start of Linda Linda Linda (2005) is rife with misunderstandings. A series of interpersonal blunders leads to the dissolution of a high school band, leaving students Kei (Yuu Kashii), Kyoko (Aki Maeda), and Nozomi (Shiori Sekine)… Continue reading
|Ben Jarman| The movie Hot Fuzz has many references to 80s and 90s action films and many of these films had Nintendo video game adaptations. The following pages are an attempt to create a strategy guide for an 8-bit Hot Fuzz adaptation that does not exist. Just imagine Edgar Wright’s movie… Continue reading
|Devin Warner| There’s something really special about the homage film. It wasn’t until rewatching Hot Fuzz for my Perisphere article on Shakedown that I realized a lot of my favorite movies growing up were the homage films. That genre is something that I feel taps into that… Continue reading
|Nicole Rojas-Oltmanns| It may have been the video game, Plants vs Zombies (2009), that made kids fall in love with the undead. Ever since, there has been a slew of inappropriate and almost appropriate zombie content directed at young people. But zombies are scary as shit. They are… Continue reading
|Allison Vincent| I love comedy. If theater or filmmaking is cooking then comedy, to me, is the baking. It’s all about precision and, most importantly, timing. I cut my comedic teeth on Looney Tunes, The Three Stooges, Mr. Bean, and Mel Brooks movies. My grandmother would take me to used book Continue reading
|Lucille Hanson| Around February or March 2019, I was at an interview for a local filming company and in their lobby, I spotted the Spring program for the Trylon. I flipped through it and was blown away. It was the first time I had ever seen a movie theater run nothing but older movies. Continue reading
|Courtney Kowalke| For a film reviewer, I have a big blind spot when it comes to Asian cinema. I enjoy the occasional Bollywood musical, and the Twin Cities Arab Film Festival keeps me up to date on the Middle Eastern movie scene. I am pretty ignorant of what’s going on… Continue reading
|Zach Staads| A quick note up top, this is one of my all-time favorite movies and I highly recommend you see it if you haven’t yet. Buy your tickets now, don’t wait. I have oft spoken about my love of theatricality in film (see my article on Kuroneko’s theatrical lighting style her)… Continue reading
|Chris Polley| Borders are fake, but people are real. Director Carol Reed knew this better than most others who have trafficked in spy thrillers and political noir over the years. And while The Man Between is typically less regarded than his prior masterpieces The Third Man… Continue reading
|Chris Polley| Breaking up families, the oppressed becoming the oppressor, the government sanctioning open and wanton cruelty on the streets—sound familiar? When I got offered the chance to write about Kenji Mizoguchi’s folktale-inspired 1954 epic Sansho the Bailiff this past winter amid Operation Metro Surge and just weeks after the murders of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, I immediately felt the connection. It was deep in my bones. Continue reading
|Dan Howard| Since the end of World War II, hundreds of, if not over a thousand, films have been made about it, capturing varying themes from fighting on the front lines, infiltrating the Third Reich, the effect of the war on innocent bystanders, etc. Yet, the WWII films I find myself drawn to are… Continue reading
|Penny Folger| Family Plot, Alfred Hitchcock’s final feature film, turns 50 this year, and while often overlooked, it’s a delightful and, dare I say, light comedy? But how could the director so often associated with murder have made something… cute? (Fortunately… Continue reading
|Patrick Clifford| In the 1976 film Family Plot, the word plot refers to a piece of land where a family is seemingly buried. The family who owns the plot is the Shoebridge family. Both details say very little about the “storyline” definition of plot. But Family Plot is a film by Alfred Hitchcock… Continue reading
|John Costello| For all its intrigue, racketeering, grift, occasional death, and rubble, The Third Man (1949) maintains a persistent optimism. Zither music strings us through chase scenes across Vienna’s war-damaged landscapes and down shadowy passages. The movie’s action includes… Continue reading
|Ian Taylor| Two gentlemen are sitting in a railway carriage, traveling through London. As the train slows down at a station, the first man looks out the window and says, “Is this Wembley?” The second man, gauging, replies, “No, it’s Thursday.” The first man nods thoughtfully and says… Continue reading
|Wil McMillen| Sometimes you see a thing, and then you can’t unsee it. I’m sorry for what I’m about to do, but I’m about to ruin the ending of North by Northwest for you. I blame my wife for this. Proceed with caution if you don’t want to know how the magic works. When we were dating… Continue reading
|Ryan Sanderson| Rorschach-like light patterns on large screens. Bodies gyrating rhythmically. Some dancers truly really feel the rhythm. Others just pump their fists and play along. I’m not great at reading crowds, but the ratio of pretenders to true believers doesn’t seem great… Continue reading
|Tim Schwagel| When I eagerly popped in my copy of Collateral to prepare for this article, I had a lot of potential topics rattling around in my head. I could ramble for days about the magic of films that take place over one night, the overt themes of not letting perfection get in the… Continue reading
|Dan McCabe| I first saw Collateral when it came out in theaters during late summer of 2004. A friend and I saw it on a whim after an evening round of golf. On the way to the multiplex, we passed a car driving at night with its lights off. The sun had set not long ago, so it’s quite possible the… Continue reading
|Dan McCabe| When I was a college student, I worked at the front desk of my dorm. The shelf beneath the window stored a few hundred VHS tapes, which residents could rent by dropping off their university ID card. One rather uneventful night, I browsed… Continue reading
|Natalie Marlin| Hamlet is no more a play about a prince seeking revenge than it is about any of its other threads—nationalistic aristocratic decay, melancholic humors, loss inciting psychiatric madness. Patsies cast off to certain death, mere pawns in power plays. Blood begetting more blood, until it is entirely… Continue reading
|Jay Ditzer| Will Graham: I thought you might be curious to see if you’re smarter than the person I’m looking for. Dr. Hannibal Lecktor: Then by implication, you think you’re smarter than me since you caught me. Will Graham: I know that I’m not smarter than you. Dr. Hannibal… Continue reading
|Jackson Stern| “You owe me awe,” says the fictional serial killer at the darkened core of Manhunter. Lucky for him, the moviegoing public not only met his demand but put it on a pedestal. In the four decades since the film’s release, Michael Mann’s third theatrical feature has become the… Continue reading
|Courtney Kowalke| If I were a character in Rear Window (1954), I would be the woman who lives above Lars and Anna Thorwald with her husband and their dog. I have thought about this a lot—Rear Window is one of my all-time favorite movies. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched… Continue reading
|Andrew Neill| Let’s start with a trigger warning for the film Rear Window: the dog dies. The sensitivity around this subject is prevalent, powerful, and worthy of respect. There’s a whole site where a community of people compile trigger warnings for sensitive content in media… Continue reading
|Sophie Durbin| “Frank unfolds his wallet to place the letter inside. A tattered paste-up collage is there, too. He opens it. There’s a white house from a magazine. A cut-out Cadillac is glued in front. Bits and pieces of trees are drawn in with green Pentel. A small baby from a Gerber food ad… Continue reading
