“Perhaps David Cronenberg is owed another kind of reputation: that of a humanist filmmaker who observes and questions, who understands our pain and sorrow as well as our ambitions both intellectual and libidinous.”
“What is so strange about the New Hollywood renaissance of the 70s is that it took place at a time of acute crisis for the business. It was a signal of the industry’s weakness that these cracks in the veneer were not only permitted but encouraged…”
“The 70s were a tumultuous and often bleak decade for the British film industry, and this pessimism bled into its output.”
“The utter sadness of Little and Big Edie’s story is why ‘Grey Gardens’ is so moving — direct cinema allowed this story to be explored with a level of intimacy previously unavailable.”
“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.”
“By the end, ‘Notes on a Conditional Form’ reveals itself to be about very little — too incoherent to justify its length and too scattershot to feel like a unified whole.”
“Perhaps the exaggerated disregard for human life in the name of national pride, entertainment and prosperity in ‘Death Race 2000’ is a timely trigger for reassessing priorities as we await a return to normalcy.”
“By creating such a sympathetic, human subject, Lumet deepens the impact of his institutional critique of the justice system; its dehumanizing effect on American society seems all the more tragic when Sonny is its victim.”
“So, what is it about these two figureheads of cult film that makes them so iconically and definitively camp?”
