Interview With ‘Raat Akeli Hai’ Screenwriter Smita Singh
Dipankar Sarkar Interviews ‘Raat Akeli Hai’ Screenwriter Smita Singh
In Praise of 90s Gwyneth Paltrow
“It’s easy to feel a sense of loss for the great actress and movie star that Paltrow could have become, had she not lost interest in the profession and shifted her attention to her questionable business empire.”
Miranda July Mints ‘Kajillionaire’
“Never weird for the sake of weird, July’s movies are perfectly prismatic, refracting facets of recognizable life experiences through the singularity and peculiarity of her vision.”
World Cinema Project: Permanent Impermanence — ‘Pixote’ and ‘Memories of Underdevelopment’
“‘Memories of Underdevelopment’ shares with ‘Pixote’ a cautious destabilization, a sense of how long can this last, of tipping points, radical reform and the capricious aftermath.”
Lodge Kerrigan’s ‘Clean, Shaven’ and the Cinematic Virtue of Empathy
“‘Clean, Shaven’ depicts a culture in which there is little empathy for the mentally ill, perhaps because it is a culture influenced by fictional portrayals in which people like Peter are predominately unfeeling mad killers.”
Mythic Conduits for Intimate Pain in Edgar G. Ulmer’s ‘The Black Cat’
“While ‘The Black Cat’ does not share many explicit connections with Poe’s 1843 story, both texts use archetypal symbolism to explore painfully intimate experiences (in Poe’s case, addiction and mental disarray, and in Ulmer’s case, psychological trauma).”
Escape to Paradise: The Unusual Sweetness of ‘Carlito’s Way’
“What both Pacino and De Palma vividly convey throughout the film is that there’s absolutely nothing dubious or spurious about Carlito’s conviction in his ability to evolve.”
Martin Scorsese, ‘Mean Streets’ and Caravaggio’s Moment of Illumination
“In Caravaggio and Scorsese’s art, the silent actions of male and female characters speak louder than words. We don’t need to hear Holofernes scream to understand what Judith has taken.”
Tearing Down the Monument: Sean Connery’s 1970s
“In my hatred for the Bond franchise, I feel I may have done a disservice to its star. I have always had a tendency to discount Sean Connery as an exquisitely sculpted statue, capable of filling out a tuxedo very nicely but little else.”
World Cinema Project: Behind Closed Doors – ‘The Housemaid’ and ‘Insiang’
“One of the great joys in viewing the films amassed under the World Cinema Project banner is discovering the richness of a nation’s cultural and scenic backdrop.”
12 Angry Films: Sidney Lumet on Justice #12 – ‘Find Me Guilty’
“The accumulated effect of ‘Find Me Guilty,’ with its litany of absurdities, is that it is better to deliver the accused from continued subjugation than to maintain faith in a system that has lost all claim to its moral authority.”
Review: Christian Sparkes’ ‘Hammer’
“Hammer’s short length may feel like a detriment to some and seem too sparse, with its brevity making for some awkward moments. That said, it’s a refreshing change from the sprawling crime sagas of late…”
Review: Josh Trank’s ‘Capone’
“Hardy provides something alien, both amusing and disgusting, a unique cross between Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance in ‘The Shining’ and Vincent D’Onofrio’s Bug in ‘Men in Black.'”
‘True History of the Kelly Gang’: Nothing in Life Is Free
“‘True History of the Kelly Gang’ explodes like a Molotov cocktail, one that is fueled by punk spirit and more androgynous costuming than a New York Dolls album.”
Sympathy for the Devil: How ‘Batman Returns’ Complicates the Penguin
“In the end, there can be no simple feelings of joy or satisfaction in seeing Batman defeat the Penguin — in seeing the good guy defeat the bad guy — because who’s the winner here, really?”
‘Ghost in the Shell SAC_2045’: Unsustainable Revival
“‘Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045’ attempts to move the series into full octane action but pushes its philosophical roots to the side.”
12 Angry Films: Sidney Lumet on Justice #11 – ‘Night Falls on Manhattan’
“In ‘Night Falls on Manhattan,’ Lumet arrives at acceptance — the system is what it is. He is resigned to his inability to chronicle any meaningful change through his work.”
12 Angry Films: Sidney Lumet on Justice #10 – ‘A Stranger Among Us’
“As a chronicler of the justice system in a dozen or more films, Lumet is intimately concerned with the ways in which it represses individual thought and fails to live up to its supposedly defining principles.”
Movement and Melancholy in Michael Mann’s ‘Miami Vice’
“In the cinema of Michael Mann, romance comes fast or not at all, often smothered by the anonymous network of mankind itself or maybe just your job.”
World Cinema Project: Persistence of Vision – ‘Dry Summer’ & ‘Law of the Border’
“‘Dry Summer’ and ‘Law of the Border’ remain available as fascinating, engaging documents of a national cinema often forgotten.”