This House Is Not a Home: On John Cassavetes’ Troubled Families
An Essay by Phuong Le
Summer of Darkness: Fritz Lang’s ‘M’ (1931)
“It’s going to be a #NoirSummer, and hopefully some of the world’s filmmakers are paying attention to the simple yet effective methods of their predecessors.”
We Failed This Film: Andrew Dominik’s ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’
We Failed This Film is a series about various films that simply didn’t get the love that they deserved upon initial release.
The Theater of Fear: John Cassavetes’ ‘Opening Night’
“Throughout ‘Opening Night,’ reality and make-believe are interwoven into a mass of chaos.”
Love in the Time of Cabiria
An Essay by Kyle Turner
New German Cinema: Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s ‘The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant’
“An emotionally existential journey through the cycle of love, Fassbinder’s film conveys an incredible power for empathy, and a profound understanding of deeply human characters.”
Magical Mojo: Lee Toland Krieger’s ‘The Age of Adaline’
“Filled with sappy moments but fueled by Lively’s classical mojo, The Age of Adaline holds back just enough to capitalize on its magical realism.”
New German Cinema: Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s ‘Beware of a Holy Whore’
“While Beware of a Holy Whore symbolizes a voice for Fassbinder’s many criticisms of the filmmaking process, he uses aspects of the film to parody his own life and dispositions.”
New German Cinema: Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s ‘The American Soldier’
“A surrealist bookend to his unofficial gangster trilogy, The American Soldier finds R.W. Fassbinder not only at peace with his version of cinematic grace but more cynically-minded than ever.”
New German Cinema: Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s ‘Gods of the Plague’
“A complex study of character and mood, Gods of the Plague relies heavily on subtly-crafted and detached scenes to amass larger thematic ideas of isolation, jealousy and love.”
New German Cinema: Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s ‘Love is Colder Than Death’
“Basking in drawn-out pauses and uninterrupted tracking shots, Fassbinder strives to make his audience feel a profound discomfort and delights in presenting an errant challenge to his viewers’ integrity.”
Channeling Chekhov and Cassavetes: Chris Messina’s ‘Alex of Venice’
“From the fluid cinematography of Doug Emmett to Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s obvious transition into an undeniable star, the directorial debut of Chris Messina, Alex of Venice, contains a natural honesty that simply feels right.”
The Act of Clicking: Levan Gabriadze’s ‘Unfriended’
“Unfriended intelligently explores the act of clicking and how those split-second decisions can change everything.”
Case for Criterion: William Friedkin’s ‘Bug’
“‘Bug’ closes in on you in a curiously suffocating way. It’s disorienting in the best way possible.”
Case for Criterion: Tomas Alfredson’s ‘Let the Right One In’
“The horror reads as a treatise against a dominant culture that upholds rather old-fashioned ideas of gender…”
Case for Criterion: Jamie Babbit’s ‘But I’m a Cheerleader’
“Babbit recognizes that the characters in question have a difficult choice to make: to subscribe to a dominant culture and survive or to ‘be themselves’ and ostensibly be shunned.”
Case for Criterion: Xavier Dolan’s ‘Heartbeats’
“Critics have labeled ‘Heartbeats’ as derivative and pretentious, flamboyant and bratty, but it’s exactly the kind of film where such criticism means that it’s doing its job.”
Case for Criterion: Marc Forster’s ‘Stranger Than Fiction’
“The complexities of ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ are worthy of their own analysis, but the film’s simplicities and stark honesty about emotion are its strengths.”
After the Darkness: Jean Rollin’s ‘The Iron Rose’ (1973)
“Tastefully erotic and mystical in tone, The Iron Rose shines a light on youthful arrogance that often blinds us from darker realities.”
Chasing Chabrol: ‘La cérémonie’
“If you have an ounce of capitalist discomfort, ‘La cérémonie’ will surely begin to boil your blood, and that’s where things get interesting.”