Film Archive

  • Sometimes it’s hard to see the point of writing about anything, particularly anything that is good. I contend that critics like “difficult” or “intellectual” cinema less because they actually like […]

    Don Hertzfeldt Examined… not too closely

    Sometimes it’s hard to see the point of writing about anything, particularly anything that is good. I contend that critics like “difficult” or “intellectual” cinema less because they actually like […]

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  • Some observations: -Perhaps more than any other horror film of the 1990s, Scream acts as a fun history lesson.  In chiding and recycling the slasher film tropes of yesteryear, Wes […]

    The Best Horror Movies of the 90s: Scream

    Some observations: -Perhaps more than any other horror film of the 1990s, Scream acts as a fun history lesson.  In chiding and recycling the slasher film tropes of yesteryear, Wes […]

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  • Lame.  Fans of Richard Matheson’s classic novel, I Am Legend, and cheesy, early 70s horror may want to see this flick.  It’s not a faithful adaptation, though, and outside of […]

    The Omega Man

    Lame.  Fans of Richard Matheson’s classic novel, I Am Legend, and cheesy, early 70s horror may want to see this flick.  It’s not a faithful adaptation, though, and outside of […]

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  • Where does it come from: I believe it was an extra on some release – I do not know which, but it has its own IMDB page and was produced […]

    Inferno – Making of the Expendables

    Where does it come from: I believe it was an extra on some release – I do not know which, but it has its own IMDB page and was produced […]

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  • This review is a discursive plug for Alex Cox’s book, 10,000 Ways to Die.  Cox synopsizes just about every Spaghetti Western ever made.  His estimations of the films themselves, though, are […]

    The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

    This review is a discursive plug for Alex Cox’s book, 10,000 Ways to Die.  Cox synopsizes just about every Spaghetti Western ever made.  His estimations of the films themselves, though, are […]

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  • Conspicuous by his absence from the soundtrack, Bowie as beautiful, androgynous space freak is all over Velvet Goldmine. Quite a few people, Bowie included, cattily dismissed the movie as a […]

    Velvet Goldmine

    Conspicuous by his absence from the soundtrack, Bowie as beautiful, androgynous space freak is all over Velvet Goldmine. Quite a few people, Bowie included, cattily dismissed the movie as a […]

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  • 54 years and change. That was about three years ago now for Nick Cave, whose semi-documentary is one of the odder meditations around on music, art, and the folly of […]

    20,000 Days on Earth

    54 years and change. That was about three years ago now for Nick Cave, whose semi-documentary is one of the odder meditations around on music, art, and the folly of […]

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  • Working for Universal Studios in the 1950s, director Douglas Sirk beat TV at its own game by churning out a series of Technicolored soaps that embalmed some of the brightest female […]

    Written on the Wind

    Working for Universal Studios in the 1950s, director Douglas Sirk beat TV at its own game by churning out a series of Technicolored soaps that embalmed some of the brightest female […]

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  • Director Preston Sturges ribs Hollywood.  Here, Joel McCrea plays a guilt-stricken director of comedies who wants to make a socially relevant film.  Dressed as a bum, he hits the road in […]

    Sullivan’s Travels

    Director Preston Sturges ribs Hollywood.  Here, Joel McCrea plays a guilt-stricken director of comedies who wants to make a socially relevant film.  Dressed as a bum, he hits the road in […]

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  • Based on an autobiography, this Pre-Code gem is unique because it wears its social conscience on its sleeve (it depicts the Georgia prison system as it was in those years), and it’s […]

    I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

    Based on an autobiography, this Pre-Code gem is unique because it wears its social conscience on its sleeve (it depicts the Georgia prison system as it was in those years), and it’s […]

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