Graft & Collusion: Finding the Real Tom Waits Within the Illusions of One from the Heart

|Sam L. Landman| As he ventured onto the American Zoetrope lot in the fall of 1980, fully prepared to write the soundtrack to Francis Ford Coppola’s One from the Heart, Tom Waits had already spent a majority of his career as an imposter. (And I say that lovingly, as a fan who’s… Continue reading

Of Earrings and Eras: The Earrings of Madame de… and Cinematic History

|Dan McCabe| The Earrings of Madame de…(1953) may be the last great work of the French “Poetic Realism” period. It certainly isn’t the only film that marks the end of a historical era in the development of motion pictures. What interests me about it is that usually evolve… Continue reading

In the name of the Father, the Son, and Uncle Nicky: A Trinity of Masculinities in Nancy Savoca’s Household Saints

|Matthew Christensen| I should begin by confessing to a degree of uneasiness over my title for this piece. As the adult son of an evangelical minister, the impact of growing up in a devout household has lingered long into my adulthood. The idea of saying anything that… Continue reading

Arica, mi Amor: Cine Chileno y La casa lobo

|Finn Odum| I. Gringos en Arica. The first of my three weeks in Arica, a city on the Chilean-Peruvian border, was spent in a beachside hotel. We had free breakfast in the mornings, a pool overlooking the ocean, and most importantly, a bar just a five-minute walk away. Many of us were… Continue reading

The Museum of Home Video’s Ring, Ring: a Doorbell Cam Fantasia is Coming to Town! Some Context on Bret Berg’s MOHV from a Fellow Los Angeleno Who Witnessed its Inception

A blurry black and white image by a door camera, showing a person dressed as a scary clown, holding three balloons, standing in someone's doorway, facing the camera.

|Penny Folger| The Museum of Home Video is an online streaming show that took flight during the pandemic and seems to have created an empire. Started by Los Angeleno film programmer/distributor Brett Berg, it takes place at museumofhomevideo.com at 7:30 pm PST most Tuesday evenings. Since its inception in July… 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