Tag: satire

“I’m Mad As Hell!”Network And The Profits Of Rage

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Peter Finch as Howard Beale standing in front of a bank of clocks, sweaty and angry, his hands in the air, yelling.

|Wil McMillen| Network plays in at the Trylon Cinema from Friday, March 27th, through Sunday, March 29th. For tickets, showtimes, and other series information, visit trylon.org. My first day as a national news photographer was December 19, 1998, one of the most important and crazy days that nobody ever talks about…. Continue reading

They Shoot Hamsters, Don’t They

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|MH Rowe| If you’re going to do something really stupid, it’s not a bad idea to be beautiful. Maybe that’s how Val Kilmer ended up in Top Secret! (1984), which is both his film debut and a spoof of spy stories, resistance thrillers, and, for some reason, Elvis Presley. Top Secret!… Continue reading

A Labor of Love: Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein 

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|Allison Vincent| As a kid growing up at the tail end of the 80s through the 90s with access to cable and an unrestricted library card, it was pretty easy to consume the media I wanted without too much interruption from my parents. My dad was lax, to say the least, when it came to… Continue reading

There’s No Lying In That Beef: Breaking Down The Singularly Unflinching Satire of The Heartbreak Kid

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|Vincent Cheng| CONTEXT What creates the sensation of personal discomfort when watching comedies, and what is the value of that discomfort? To answer these questions, I’d like you to first close your eyes and imagine something funny. Undoubtedly you pictured, as I did… Continue reading

Turn Your Gaze Upon This Wretched Thing: The Schismatic Spectacle of Brian DePalma’s Hi, Mom!

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A white man waving at the camera, with the image cut off horizontally and mirrored at the middle

|Courtney Kowalke| I cannot escape the reach of Ancient Greek theater. The last piece I wrote for Perisphere was about Mai Zetterling’s The Girls and a fictional production of Aristophanes’ comedy Lysistrata. It turns out a large part of director Brian DePalma’s inspiration for… Continue reading

The Ruling Class: Arrogance in Aristocracy

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Two men walk through a botanical garden. The one on the left is dressed in black, while the one on the right is wearing a white suit.

|Yuval Klein| The Ruling Class portrays England as a shallow, decadent, and incorrigible institution hiding behind the facade of modernization. Oscillating between a traditional narrative and a musical, the theatrical film satirizes British aristocracy and Christianity in… Continue reading