An Interview with ‘Plan 9 from Outer Space’ Author Katharine Coldiron
‘Plan 9 from Outer Space’ Interview: Andrew Wyatt discusses the 1957 Ed Wood movie with author Katharine Coldiron.
Nine-to-Five Fellows: The Company Man Comes Home
“The generation that had fought the war was confronting the generation that had overseen it, staging a sub-rosa assault on entrenched power.” – D.M. Palmer on ‘Patterns,’ ‘The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit’ and ‘The Apartment’
‘Gauguin’ and ‘Guernica’: Alain Resnais Comes Unstuck
“If ‘Gauguin’ and ‘Guernica’ shine a light on their respective subjects, they also present a key part of Resnais’ own development as an artist.”
By the Rivers of Babylon: Structure and Setting in Margaret Tait’s ‘Orquil Burn’
“In ‘Orquil Burn,’ an internalised inquiry meets external spaces with a quiet yet insistent beauty.”
Beat Cops: Police Brutality and Film Noir
“Otto Preminger’s ‘Where the Sidewalk Ends’ and Nicholas Ray’s ‘On Dangerous Ground’ gesture towards the difficult conditions under which police labor while turning a critical eye on the brutally violent detectives who abuse their power.”
The Disaster Area: From ‘Airport’ to ‘Airplane!’ – Part One
“It is during the 70s that the disaster film’s most pure and admirable entries were made, bookended by two significantly different stories involving air travel fiascos.”
Hollywood Confronts Itself: Cynicism and Self-Doubt in the 50s
“A sense of restlessness began to be addressed tentatively, and was confronted with increasing boldness as the decade progressed. Battles were being waged on multiple fronts of this unacknowledged war, claims were being sought from historically neglected constituents.”
12 Angry Films: Sidney Lumet on Justice #1 – ’12 Angry Men’
“Spaces are key to Lumet’s vision of the justice system; the ideas that bind it together must play out in physical spaces, and in them, Lumet finds the embodiment of all its flaws and virtues.”
Shattering Orientalism Through Noir: Samuel Fuller’s ‘House of Bamboo’
“The gritty and hard-nosed film noir genre is rife with actors and directors that helped to not only change conversations about American cinema, but also the nation’s consciousness.”
Review: Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Phantom Thread’
“If indeed this is Day-Lewis’ swan song, ‘Phantom Thread’ is the crowning achievement of a monumental career.”
War and Domestic Violence in Fritz Lang’s ‘Human Desire’
“In ‘Human Desire,’ the train tracks carry its hero into the sunny paradise of the American Dream, not the depths of noir’s endless night.”
Of Love and Other Demons: ‘Baby Doll’ Celebrates Its 60th Anniversary
A Column on Love and Erotica in Cinema by Justine A. Smith
Of Love and Other Demons: ‘House by the River’
“While Lang never fully embraced socialist principles over the course of his career, he always seemed to have a violent distaste for the men who stood on the shoulders of those who were less fortunate, knowing full well that social class does not correlate a strong moral conscious.”
Classes, Clashes and the City of Michelangelo Antonioni’s ‘Le amiche’
“With ‘Le amiche,’ Antonioni further bridges the gap between comparatively conservative melodrama and the groundbreaking narrative and visual abstraction he would soon unleash.”
The Moreau Files: ‘The Lovers’
“It is incredible to think that Malle was only 25 years old when he made ‘The Lovers,’ as it seems to hold the wisdom and erotic impulses of a much older man.”
The Moreau Files: ‘Elevator to the Gallows’
“A feeling of powerlessness is no doubt at the heart of Moreau’s possessed performance in ‘Elevator to the Gallows.'”