8 years ago
Longform (10 posts found)
Postwar Cinema: The Polish School
Poland’s film production of the 1950s and the early 1960s, known as the Polish School, offers a rich array of cinematic approaches—from understated existentialist meditations on loneliness to swanky noir, with touches of Hitchcock and melodrama. A number of th...
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‘A Christmas Story’ Turns 30
I saw A Christmas Story at the Hudson Mall Cinema in my hometown of Jersey City, New Jersey. My parents took my siblings and me, and while I don’t recall my Pops’ reaction to the film, I vividly remember my mother hating it with the heat of a thousand suns. He...
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Sacrificing The Cat: How An Unexpected Faith Condemns ‘Llewyn Davis’
The Coens' latest work is heavily influenced by an oft-ignored religion.
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Why We Watch Movies
The first time I remember going to the movies was in 1994 at the age of five. It was the first outing that my sister and I were privy to that didn't involve coloring mats, kid's menus, or a playground. This was something adults got to do. This was something ma...
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The Travels of Alexander Payne
Citizen Ruth, Alexander Payne’s first film, is not what you would call a laugh-out-loud comedy, but there is one moment that always gets me. Towards the end of the film, Ruth (Laura Dern), a pregnant junkie who has become the center of a political firestorm be...
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The Cunnilingus Conundrum: Why The Allure of ‘Blue is the Warmest Color’ Is Its Biggest Detraction
The controversy surrounding Blue Is The Warmest Color only distracts from its strengths, both onscreen and off.
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Something Wicked This Way Comes: The Opening Shot of Halloween
Earlier this month, John Carpenter’s seminal genre work Halloween, and its spectral force of pure evil Michael Myers, celebrated 35 years of hacking and slashing the residents of Haddonfield, Ill. Halloween was a pitch-black examination of Original Sin wreakin...
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Shoot to the Beat: The Lasting Relevance of the Beat Generation
“Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cassady...” [1]
Beatniks have intrigued and inspired since the beginning of their movement. For the mainstream media and film that favored shortcuts, redundancy and...
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They’re All Gonna Laugh At You: Revisiting Brian De Palma’s ‘Carrie’
Brian De Palma's adaptation of the Stephen King novel may be his best film.
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Why ‘Parkland’ Is Really A 9/11 Movie
It’s been 20 years since the release of In the Line of Fire, the last major motion picture about the assassination of JFK. That film came on the heels of JFK and Ruby, both of which came out the year before. Although they took different tacks, all three films ...
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