“Nomi of ‘Showgirls’ and Betty of ‘Mulholland Dr.’ seem to be communicating with each other across space and time, from entirely different films yet resolutely from within the same universe.”
“Both Lucas and Lynch’s world views allow for the possibility of personal atonement, and for external peace emerging from inner peace.”
“Sometimes, films set in and around Hollywood manage to capture a sense about the place that’s strange and uncanny, a place in love with its past and afraid of its future, leaving nothing but ghosts behind to haunt the hills, and to walk the empty mansions.”
“Alverson takes familiar images, milieus and scenarios as a starting point, only to render them alien, jettisoning the usual tenets of narrative cinema in favour of a style that’s far more challenging and hard to define.”
“If David Lynch had set ‘Twin Peaks’ in rural Georgia, then Bambara could have composed the soundtrack.”
In the first part of a three-chapter conversation conducted over months via a large Google Doc, film critics Manuela Lazic and Adam Nayman discuss what makes a writer’s voice, colleagues that keep inspiring them and how, a generation apart, they became interested in movies and writing.
In the Vague Visages Writers’ Room on Facebook, freelancers were asked to comment about their favorite neo-noir films in celebration of #Noirvember.
“Phoenix delivers an opaque but strikingly physical performance, reminiscent of the women in Charlie Chaplin’s films.”
In the Vague Visages Writers’ Room on Facebook, freelancers were asked to comment about their favorite Halloween flicks.
“Harry Dean Stanton was dependable, durable and made whatever part his own, no matter how big or small.”
“I felt challenged to endure something so terrifying, so relentlessly destabilizing. I felt fear.”
Vague Visages Short Stories #7: Bleeding and Breathing Deeply by Q.V. Hough (Fargo, North Dakota)
“It’s done critically, sympathetically and with a demand from the viewer to take responsibility for their role in the story, too.”
“The failure of language permeates ‘Twin Peaks,’
an abundance of verbiage disintegrating under the looming and ageless presence in the woods.”
“Just as with life, ‘Mulholland Dr.’ is unexplainable.”
“The ambition and concept are good to have, it just takes a lot more work to match the craft and care of Bergman, Altman or Lynch.”
“If ever a soul was captured on camera, this is it.”
Marshall Shaffer Interviews Iconic Indie Cinematographer Fred Elmes
A Column on Film Criticism by Justine A. Smith
A Weekly Column on Love and Erotica in Cinema by Justine A. Smith
