|Courtney Kowalke| Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) is on my list of movies I want to watch before I die. It’s on page two, between Splendor in the Grass (1961) and Avanti (1972). I do not remember why I put Beach Blanket Bingo on my list, but it’s there and has been… Continue reading
|Matt Lambert| I used to think the death of culture was Aretha Franklin songs played in Applebee’s’ commercials to sell cheap chicken wings and obscenely sauced slabs of ribs. I now know that the death of culture was when Albert Brooks stopped making movies… Continue reading
|Penny Folger| Gidget. What springs to mind for people when they hear this name, that is, if in 2024 they still know the reference? The beach? Actors surfing in front of a green screen? Maybe Sally Field? Gidget, from 1959 as directed by Paul Wendkos and starring Sandra Dee… Continue reading
|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
|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
|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
|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
|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
|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
|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
|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
|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
|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
|Veda Lawrence| Our unsuspecting man will be minding his own business, drinking a lackluster old fashioned at the bar, reading a book, likely taking a day off of his more literary endeavors and winding down with some fluff, perhaps Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? or some other light, beachy read. Just then, his peace will be disturbed… Continue reading
|Timothy Zila| There’s a knock on the door or a ringing phone or, quite often, a stranger waiting in the detective’s office. The noir protagonist doesn’t seek trouble out; trouble seeks him. So it goes in Chinatown and The Maltese Falcon. And so it goes, too, in Blade Runner. When we meet Deckard… Continue reading
|Sophie Durbin| What movie has the finest ensemble cast of the 1980s? Hannah and her Sisters? The Color Purple? The Breakfast Club? The Untouchables? Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean if you’re feeling obscure? Nope! It’s Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. I could write… Continue reading
|Bob Aulert| The 1970s film industry was rife with paranoia, as films like The Parallax View (1974), The Conversation(1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), and All The President’s Men (1976) played to eager audiences shocked by the revelations of Watergate and quite ready… Continue reading
|Mia McGill| If you ask someone what their favorite queer comfort film is, you’ll turn back a wide variety of answers; maybe some cult classics like But I’m a Cheerleader or Hedwig and the Angry Inch, or newer faves like Bottoms or Love, Simon… Continue reading
|Natalie Marlin| Hearing it solely on its own terms, “Goodbye Horses” is an achingly beautiful song. Q Lazzarus’ voice quavers but never loses its assuredness. She makes the most of her low resonance, embracing her voice’s androgynous qualities. William Garvey’s gorgeously cryptic lyricism is just as crucial to the song’s mystique… Continue reading
|Kevin Maher| The pitch for The Blair Witch Project, the 1999 summer box office phenomenon and viral marketing sensation, is as simple as the finished movie actually turned out to be. “Student filmmakers go into the woods to make a documentary, disappear, and their footage is found,” certainly relays the basic tenants of the story… Continue reading
|Chris Ryba-Tures| Somewhere between Planet Hollywood and Hooters, on the top floor of the Mall of America, I was stopped dead in my tracks. It was 1998. I was seventeen, sporting a bleach-blonde Eminem haircut, a brand-new Marilyn Manson “Antichrist Superstar” ringer tee from Hot Topic, and black leather 8-hole Doc Marten’s that were finally getting that perfect mosh pit scuff… Continue reading
|Penny Folger| Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a novel that was originally published in 1897, was later adapted to film over 200 times. What led Francis Ford Coppola to make it again in 1992, on the heels of his Godfather III? The answer can be found in then 19-year-old Winona Ryder. After dropping out of Godfather III due to nervous exhaustion… Continue reading
|Hannah Baxter| It’s November 1992, and a new movie with Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves has just come out. As someone born at the tail end of Gen X, that’s all you need to know. You’ve never heard of Francis Ford Coppola or the male lead, someone unmemorably named Gary Oldman. You have, however, watched Heathers, Edward Scissorhands, … Continue reading
|Chris Polley| Besides both of us being complete dorks, the venerable, legendary auteur Francis Ford Coppola (of Godfather and Apocalypse Now fame) and I have exactly one thing in common: We both forced a group of people to sit down and read Bram Stoker’s iconic gothic novel Dracula out loud together… Continue reading
|Sophie Durbin| My first encounter with George Sluizer’s The Vanishing was on a lazy evening in February of 2023. The Criterion Channel description promised a “truly unsettling” ending, which drew me in since I love being upset by fictional peoples’ problems… Continue reading
|MH Rowe| You might say The Vanishing (1988) tells the tale of two creepy men. One is a fretful, controlling boyfriend, the other a methodical murderer. With a different emphasis, the director George Sluizer might have smoothed out the boyfriend and signaled to the audience that we aren’t supposed to understand Rex Hofman (Gene Bervoets) as a creep… Continue reading
|Velma Caty Rent| The Trylon All-Night Horrorthon is one of my all-time favorite events of the year! I’ve had the opportunity to attend and/or work at each one; including the Horrorthon-adjacent Friday the 13th marathon. I have found over the years… Continue reading
|Dan Howard| I was first introduced to Kiyoshi Kurosawa back in January, when attending a screening of Pulse (2001). During the film, I observed something you typically don’t see in a lot of modern horror media… Continue reading
|Chelli Riddiough| The first sound you hear in the 1996 horror film Scream is a ringing telephone. Not the Apple ringtone everyone has, not a tinny song emanating from a speaker. No: it’s a bold, loud ring… Continue reading
|Jake Rudegeair| What’s your favorite scary movie? I don’t have a favorite, really. More like a group of honorable mentions that rearranged my brain. Psycho made showers much less relaxing, for instance… Continue reading
|Finn Odum| I think about Wes Craven and his filmography a lot more than a stable person probably should. Craven was one of the first directors I followed when I began to study film. It’s partially because he’s… Continue reading
| Lucas Vonasek | Nothing ever happens in small towns. If you’ve never lived in one, it’s difficult to imagine what they can offer that a city cannot, whether that is a burgeoning nightlife scene, diverse cuisine options, or that alluring energy that only a hip metropolis can offer. However… Continue reading
| Dan Howard | Quentin Tarantino makes his despise for Hitler and the Nazi party well-known. The vast majority would agree. Over the last nearly 15 years, Tarantino made his own kind of historical revisionist cinema with Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Continue reading
