film
The Grim Surveillance Aesthetics of 'Panic Room'
In David Fincher's fifth film, the camera is unsettlingly fluid and invasive.
Newsletter
horror
An Appreciation of Casper Kelly
Thoughts on films like 'Too Many Cooks' and the 'Adult Swim Yule Logs'.
film
The War of the Rohirrim: Rhymes with Éowyn
Finally a good reason to return to Middle Earth.
horror
All Men Are Melted Equal: Street Trash (1987/2024)
Wealth inequality will melt your face.
queer
Cinema of Multiplicity: Films by Vera Drew, Jane Schoenbrun, Paul B. Preciado
The People's Joker, I Saw the TV Glow, and Orlando make new waves in trans storytelling.
film
Clint Eastwood and 'Cry Macho'
Few public figures understand their own iconography better than Clint Eastwood. Setting aside that weird thing where he talked to a chair, Eastwood's film work over the last 30 years has masterfully played on his own celebrity in a way that few actors or directors have been able
politics
Conservative Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
The other day I watched a double feature of Jay Roach's Bombshell, followed by his earlier film Game Change. In contrast to my recent article on political fiction, I'm more interested here in the role that real-life political figures play in these fictionalized dramas. What
Newsletter
Ant-Man in Twin Peaks (Trailer)
In the game & comic shop I spend time in, they’ve been discussing a certain new movie trailer at great length. Yet for someone who loiters about in a comic shop all day like a Kevin Smith extra, I’m little interested in the realm of geekdom. I haven’
film
Kubrick's Panopticon/Marvel's Labyrinth
Few images stand out in Stanley Kubrick’s oeuvre more than the unblinking eye of the HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film that would be practically unthinkable today (except in watered-down forms like Arrival or Blade Runner 2049): certainly Kubrick’s opus would be virtually
film
Based on a Book That Hasn't Been Written Yet: Tenet
The best and worst thing I can think to say about Tenet, a film based upon a book that hasn't been written yet, is that it is very, very Christopher Nolan. It's arguably peak Nolan at a time when that seems least needed. "Big movies
film
Transgender Biopics: The Dinah East Story
film
'God's Not Dead' Goes to Washington
More misadventures in bad cinema with two films in the God's Not Dead series.