|Andy Strudevant| The depth of annoyance that a lot of movie people felt about this subject is a little harder to parse from a quarter-century later, because I think movie people are supposed to be a little bit more broad-minded and populist these days. But man, it’s worth remembering… Continue reading
|J.R. Jones| There’s obscene, and there’s obscene. When standup comedian Lenny Bruce, worn down by years of prosecution for narcotics possession and obscene language in his nightclub act, died of a morphine overdose in August 1966, police gave news photographers a five… Continue reading
|Ed Dykhuizen| For the first half of the 20th century, all movies were made for everyone. There was no rating system, so everything had to be OK for both kids and adults. And there weren’t that many options on a particular day. You might have a choice of a western or a comedy… Continue reading
|Allison Vincent| So, firstly, this is how I feel/sound when I talk about Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin, I Am a Camera, and Cabaret: … I get weird, loud, and oddly academic, and there is a lot of red string. Here’s (in a nutshell) why: Continue reading
|Ryan Sanderson| Rushing Towards Death was the title W.R. Burnett originally wanted for High Sierra, the book that became the movie that made Humphrey Bogart into a movie star (and, more circuitously, John Huston into a director). That first—I would argue more evocative—title came from… Continue reading
|Andrew Neill| Let’s get a potentially uncool but nonetheless true thing about me out of the way right now: I am a huge fan of the American film director Wesley Wales Anderson. You probably know him as Wes Anderson. He’s one of my favorite directors—gotta be in the top three… Continue reading
|Dan Howard| By the start of 1962, Yasujirō Ozu had already directed a staggering 53 feature films that spanned a 33-year journey. With classics like Tokyo Story (1953) and Floating Weeds (1959) to lesser-known gems like The Munekata Sisters (1950), the deeper you dive… Continue reading
|Finn Odum| Eons ago (in 2019), when I was but a spritely, youthful child (20 and in college), I wrote about the 1984 controversial Claus classic Silent Night, Deadly Night. Back in the days of zinger conclusions and quippy comments on Santa Claus’s sanctity, I had dreams… Continue reading
|Nicole Rojas-Oltmanns| Japan seems to have a magnetic pull for educated Millennials. The USA, it seems, is the antithesis of the orderly, tidy, traditional, technologically advanced, and ritualistic culture of Japan in the minds of many. Whenever anyone begins recounting… Continue reading
|MH Rowe| On Dangerous Ground (1951) might appear at first to be one of the more unbearably melodramatic film noirs ever produced. Its ending, or really the ending of the ending—the film’s final scene—threatens especially to pull all that has preceded it down into the depths of pure… Continue reading
