8 years ago
Longform (10 posts found)
The Dream of 92: Cincinnati, “Airborne,” and the Cinematic Capital that Never Was
Cincinnati, Ohio is smaller than Pittsburgh and bigger than Plano, Texas. It has no national landmarks, and its topography is lovely without being majestic. It will never host an Olympics, but still hosts lesser known international events like 2012’s World Cho...
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Criticism in the Youtube age: The Video Essay in Conversation
“Sometimes you have to look at the postmodern set of circumstances we live in and conclude that the way we review things hasn't changed nearly to the same degree that art has changed.”
Though this quote from Winston Rowntree's recent piece for Cracked isn...
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Putting the Geek to the Plow
Faux film criticism, Youtube critics and where we are headed.
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“Under the Skin”: A Study of Predator as Prey
Warning: this post may contain spoilers for "Under the Skin."
After a second viewing of Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin, I'm comfortable calling it a masterpiece. Not just an other-worldly meditation on what it means to be human, like the more obvious them...
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Revisiting “Godzilla”: The Japanese Original
Godzilla is something of a pop culture punchline, a quick reference to make in reference to Japan, kaiju, or mass destruction. The King of Monsters has battled other monsters, aliens, and various human armies in nearly 30 films over the course of 60 years. The...
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Vampire 3.0: How Jim Jarmusch Evolves The Bloodsuckers
Only Lovers Left Alive is Jim Jarmusch' antidote to the declining prestige of the vampire image.
In Jarmusch' latest film a whole army of stars decides to test-ride immortality. However, even though Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska, and John Hu...
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Re-assessing William Friedkin’s “Sorcerer”
In his 1977 review, critic Andrew Sarris said of William Friedkin’s Sorcerer, “What I can swear to is the total pointlessness of the picture. What Friedkin has managed to fabricate with all his enormous resources is a visual and aural textbook on everything th...
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“Nymphomaniac” and “Grey Rape” in Entertainment
There is no rape in Nymphomaniac: Volume I. Except there is. Or at least, one could read that into it. While I don't completely subscribe to the "Death of the Author" theory, I do believe that it's possible to read an interpretation into a piece of work beside...
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A Tale of Two Cities: Rebuilding a Metropolis
"Every epoch dreams its successor"
Jules Michelet
In the grand pantheon of sci-fi cinema, no other film is as boldly revolutionary or influential as Fritz Lang's 1927 masterpiece, Metropolis. Watching it today, the silent epic has lost none of its invention,...
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“Alphaville”: Visions of Modernity
Blinding neon signs. A flashing spotlight. Cars whizzing by, rendered as a series of whooshes and blurs. The ominous beep-beep-beep of electronic displays. Jean-Luc Godard built his "Alphaville" out of these snatches and signifiers of then-contemporary life, a...
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