8 years ago
Essential Reading (10 posts found)
Quintessential material
Beyond Narrative: When Cinema Stops Making Sense
Stand outside of your local cineplex one evening and eavesdrop on people chatting as they exit the theater. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll hear someone grouse, “Damn, I wish that movie had been more difficult to understand.” But inscrutability is by no means...
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We Need To Talk About Kevin (Smith)
Editor’s note: With the release of TUSK today, Boston film critics Sean Burns and Jake Mulligan thought it would be interesting to reflect on the films Kevin Smith. What follows is a candid conversation.
Jake Mulligan: We need to talk about Kevin Smith....
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Criterion Goes Pop
Criterion claims to collect "important contemporary and classic films." To fully do that, it's high time they accepted pop cinema.
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Cynthia Rothrock, Hong Kong Action Films, and Expendable Women
Michael Mirasol talks to the venerable female actress and muses on the state of women in action films.
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Beyond Blaxploitation: A Few Words About James Earl Jones
In the latest installment of our series about black cinema in the '70s, we examine the career of one of our most esteemed black actors, which runs deeper than you may think.
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Charlie’s Country, David Gulpilil and the Realities of Race in Australia
Katina Vangopoulos explores the depiction of contemporary Indigenous Australia, as seen in Rolf de Heer's new film Charlie's Country
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Embracing The Magic: What “Boyhood” Forgets About The “Dance” Of Childhood
Jodorowsky remembers what Linklater forgets: childhood is about more than a time period.
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The Claire Denis Retrospective
Claire Denis is a woman of few words, so I shall use that as an excuse to introduce this retrospective briefly. Though I have seen all of Denis' features now, it feels to me that we barely know each other, that the more we learn, the more we know we do not kno...
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Documentarians and Their Subjects
Midway through his heart-palpating new Roger Ebert chronicle Life Itself, director Steve James ‘fesses up to a slight documentarian’s faux pas. In a voice-over narration, James notes that he and Ebert enjoyed a friendly relationship prior to the start of produ...
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The Edge of Glory: “Edge of Tomorrow” as Propaganda
In Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow, Tom Cruise goes to battle. And then does it again. And again. And again. Trapped in a time loop worthy of your typical Marvel-esque exposition, Cruise's Bill Cage and his counterpart Rita Vrataski (Emily Bunt) act as beacons o...
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