I’ve followed Eric André for a decade now, though apparently not closely enough. In 2021, he starred in Bad Trip, a hidden camera comedy about two minimum-wage employees who rush up from Florida to New York City on a romantic quest. Chris (André) sees his high-school crush back in town and decides he can’t miss his chance. After a brief, awkward interaction at the smoothie shop where he works (André shows off his hand-in-a-blender gag), she gives him her card.... Read more
Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983) is a film beyond like or dislike, an object that I find it hard to imagine releasing in theaters. On the one hand, it boasts two pop sensations from two continents (David Bowie and Takeshi Kitano). On the other, it’s the homoerotic tale of torture and cultural misunderstanding in a Japanese POW camp during WWII. The camp commandant Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto) wears make-up and practices swordplay (very loudly, I might add). David Bowie,... Read more
In The Day of the Locust (1939), Nathanael West comments that the scraggly crowds of Okies and treasure-seekers have “come to California to die.” Since at least Frederick Jackson Turner, Americans have known that California is a cliff. We rush to it and plunge off because the plains are too dry, the beaches too pretty, and, most of all, because there’s nowhere else to go. Rot untended in our vast fields, become a child actor, or push your own kid... Read more
I had the honor (and a lot of fun) chatting with Twisted Issues (1988) director Charles Pinion for my new podcast, co-hosted with Sam McIlhagga, Death is a Photograph. As has been the case for a couple weeks and will be the case for a while, I don’t have a ton of time, as I’ve started a new job. I can’t write like I’d like to. But, following our talk, I had a few thoughts. Why not jot them down... Read more
It’s always a joy to finally watch a classic movie, one you’ve known about forever but never got around to. In this case, I mean All About Eve (1950), one in a storied tradition of starlet v. parvenu films. I’m in a pickle, however. I’m a blogger, someone who writes for practice. My day jobs afford little time for writing for fun. Starting a new job means even less time than usual. What to say, and say briefly, about a... Read more
Sister Helen Prejean by way of Brecht and Kim Il-Sung, Death by Hanging (1968) is one of those New Wave films that sits uneasily on the line between documentary and fantasy. Nagisa Oshima, the director, culls his material from real life. The case of a Japanese-Korean student who killed two schoolgirls, his correspondence with a North Korea-sympathetic journalist, and the popularity of the death penalty in 1960s Japan form his topics. His form blurs realistic shots and descriptions of the... Read more
Subtitles do well with SEO, I’m told. So, there it is. But what can someone write it that Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes (1948) doesn’t say about itself? The famed British directing duo adapt a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale about an ambitious dancer driven to destruction by a pair of magical red shoes by following a couple years in the life of Victoria Page (Moira Shearer), an ambitious, troubled ballerina who finds breakout success starring in... Read more
I am putting on my bullet-proof vest and requesting a firearm license. The night is closing in all around. Here comes the darkness, the haters. Am I being dramatic? Yes. Do I think it’s funny? Yes. Do you care? Let me know. I liked Weapons (2025). It’s a cut above most other horror films in this golden age (so far as quantity is concerned, if not always quality). It’s hard to sing its praises without revealing too much. But suffice... Read more
I respect silent movies. But that’s about it. I’ve seen a couple dozen of them, probably. None has ever gripped me, more artifacts for cinematic excavation than objects of enjoyment. I watch them the way a teen checks off the canon, uncomprehendingly, in awe, but with no real feeling. I consider my feelings about silent film a source of sadness. If I can read medieval romances—precursors to the novel—with glee. Why can’t I appreciate the pre-talkies? I suspect the issue... Read more
We, or they, have canonized Yasujiro Ozu. If you’re 15 and tentatively adopting the moniker “cinephile,” he’s on the list, and you must watch his work, at least Tokyo Story (1952). The trouble is that his films are for adults. They are slow and ponderous. The camera rarely moves. He conveys dialogue through straight-on shot-reverse-shots. His themes are family dysfunction, the passage of time, death, the modernization of Japan, and the relationships among parents and their children. At 15 (or... Read more
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