Clik here to view.
Virgin Queens and Smart Blondes: Shoshana Dreyfus, Torchy Blaine, Elizabeth I
Oh Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars. - Bette Davis (NOW VOYAGER)The special power a lady of wit and intelligence has in a man's world hinges on muscle, a rock hard man to watch...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Jessica Chastain, Pre-Raphaelite Ophelia
Is the red-speckled beauty of Jessica Chastain tied inexorably to the 'modern' pre-Raphaelite art of J.W. Waterhouse? While he painted most of his works in the early part of last century, a while...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Loretta's Eyes (Pre-Code Capsules 11) - LIFE BEGINS, LOOSE ANKLES, I LIKE...
THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUTH1930 - ***There once was a hoary old saw about a gold-digging vamp luring a naive rich boy away from his Tess Trueheart, crashing him on the big city rocks and returning him to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Best Erich Writing of 2012
It was a strange year, not least because the apocalypse we were hoping for in our darkest heart of hearts never occurred. So now here we are in 2013 with no game plan. Our credit card debt is still...
View ArticleClik here to view.
CinemArchetype 20 - The 3 Sisters
O Brother Where Art Thou?Three sisters --- immovable power.. the magic number...the trinity. A solid bloc of womanhood where sisters can't help but become witches.Why three? Two women can be turned on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
CinemArchetype 21: The Ego
When I made the last cinemarchetype, the Holy Fool, it so influenced me that I became a holy man for five weeks, even starting a whole new website and accompanying cult, Pswar of the Saints. Â That's...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Hidden Auteurs part 1: Polly Platt, Gary Kurtz
Filmmaking is a collaborative business, but when film critics and writers talk of film they focus on the the director, as auteurism has taken us over. Yet Hollywood brims with men and women...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Radium Girls: Eva Green in DARK SHADOWS, Carole Lombard in NOTHING SACRED
 Unless it happens to be during a revolution, killing the rich is wrong. But hey, it's always okay to lay massive curses upon them; haven't they deserved it, since the dawn of time? Haven't they, in a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
So Red the Wranklers: ZERO DARK THIRTY, LITTLE MERMAID, HOMELAND, BLONDES AT...
As our new century rolls ceaselessly onwards, women in the workplace are transcending their place as 'imitation men' and using not just feminine wile but intuition, outside-the-box thinking and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
"I Hope it's Originality": The Parallel Universe of Ray Dennis Steckler
By (guest writer) Matthew ConiamRay Dennis Steckler lost out twice. He made films in an idiom sure to be ignored by serious critics, who for most of the time he was working weren’t looking for the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
"She Rises, the White Moon!" - NIGHT FLIGHT (1933)
"Fog... darkness.... surrounds us in its grip," Barrymore intones, "but no more!" "Night flying is going on!" he yells at board trustee silhouettes while brooding up at a giant topological map of South...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Language! Drinks! Cake! Oppression!
Watching Tarantino's INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS for the sixth time recently all I could do was absorb the language barriers; all those dinner parties I sat through in Buenos Aires while intellectual friends...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Flo, the Great and Powerful: THE GREAT ZIEGFELD (1936) and the Ludovico Flu
I've been sick all week with a terrible flu--hallucinating, vomiting, sleeping round the clock-- and it all comes to a head and makes sense with THE GREAT ZIEGFELD (1936). I was raging with fever,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Don't go in the light, no wait, go into the light! - The Last of the Great...
The year of 1982 was, as we cineastes know, the great year of American science fiction and fantasy. Not only did we get enduring faves like THE ROAD WARRIOR, CONAN THE BARBARIAN, BLADE RUNNER and THE...
View ArticleClik here to view.
CinemArchetype 22: The Outlaw Pair Bond
"Didn't you realize when we started," asks John Dahl of Bonnie Cummins in GUN CRAZY that once we started we'd never be able to ask anyone for help again, not even if we were dying?" He could be anyone...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Condoms are for Quitters: XANADU (1980) and the Death of the Naked Rock Musical
 The rock musical has seemingly vanished from the landscape, not counting fringe events like REPO: THE GENETIC OPERA or DR. HORRIBLE or 'jukebox' fare like ROCK OF AGES and MAMA MIA. I do not count...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Natasha Henstridge versus the Coordinated Cockblock Quintet: SPECIES (1995)
SPECIES (1995) gets a bad rap. Hey, the bad rap is just because it's got huge flaws and an overly sexy plot. Say what you want about the script and directing the whole thing movies very fast and well....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bella's Big Bounce - TWILIGHT: BREAKING DAWN - PART II (2012)
To those of us who recognize her special gifts, who know how to appreciate the beauty of reticence, part two of BREAKING DAWN proves a hilarious, moveable feast where we get to see a new, ass-kicking...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Period Piece Period
These days they're all but absent, aside from the work of auteurs who can do whatever they want, like Tarantino, PT Anderson, HBO, and Spielberg, but 40 years ago there was an abundance of movies set...
View ArticleClik here to view.
CinemArchetype 23: The Wild Child
I realize looking over this bunch of cool film children that I don't really hate kids, just the no-neck monsters the way 40s-50s Hollywood sacharinized them. The fact is, most children are monsters,...
View Article