This month, we pay tribute not just to a movie that almost instantly fell out of the public consciousness but to a great writer as well. North America may have no finer, no more eloquent defender of the director Paul Verhoeven than Adam Nayman, whose book, It Doesn’t Suck, is the final word on “Showgirls.” I … Read more
Today we’re going to celebrate the career of one of the great makers of genre and B-movies, whose robust adventure films and harrowing sci-fi pictures paved the way for the second half of the 20th and 21st century. Case in point this marvel, the too-little-seen and even less discussed “The Power,” a proto-superhero movie with … Read more
His movies “The Foul King,” “A Tale of Two Sisters,” “A Bittersweet Life,” and “I Saw the Devil” put him on the map. He’s yet to produce anything since that has had the same reputation to the point where his most personal film, the film set comedy “Cobweb,” vanished without a trace. I like Kim’s … Read more
We’re continuing on the theme of psychedelic Sean Connery movies; this one as empty-headed as “Zardoz” is bristling with philosophical intrigue but twice as beautiful. This is the singular work of Russell Mulcahy, the genius behind Razorback, Ricochet, and the creator of the modern music video. I love Russell Mulcahy with all my heart; I’m such … Read more
On the 7th of June, I’ll be 35 years old. If we’re being very optimistic, this isn’t exactly the start of middle age, but I don’t know what else to call it. I’ve been paying attention to the news and the weather lately, and they haven’t been putting me in a great mood. So with mortality’s … Read more
Like Carl Franklin, John Dahl, and Daniel Minahan, Keith Gordon is a director who seems to only work in TV despite having made 5-star films. Gordon’s got nothing like the reputation he deserves after becoming one of the most sensitive, sensuous adapters of great novels and a fierce stylist to boot. He created these gorgeously fraught … Read more
André de Toth fled Hungary before the second world war and relocated to the US where he made westerns and films noir attacking American complacency in its everyday iterations, a more sly, less expressionistic Fritz Lang, who allowed his audience to put together puzzle pieces and see the picture of corruption ourselves (to quote Martin Scorsese, his most … Read more
Jonathan Glazer has always skirted the mainstream without becoming part of it. Maybe it’s his interest in the destruction of the self that will always keep him at arm’s length; maybe it’s a formal alienation that insists you stare headlong into the abyss while he watches you do so. It’s an impish strategy and it has yielded … Read more
It may seem like it but it’s not every day a living legend releases a movie at the local multiplex and it just sort of passes from discussion in a couple of days. On this site, Matt Zoller Seitz, a man who knows, gave John Woo’s “Silent Night” one of the few positive reviews I read, but … Read more
It would be nicer to enter 2024 with a sunny outlook, but the world has seemed hell-bent on tearing itself apart at a faster rate than usual. As such, my mind wandered back to this forgotten anti-capitalist thriller. It’s not enough but I offer prayers for peace. There are many fires that need to be … Read more