Tag Archives: film
It’s Not You, It’s Charlie Kaufman
Ghosts Are Us: Charlie Kaufman’s new film is difficult and unique, but is it any good? Charlie Kaufman’s having a busy summer: his debut novel, Antkind was released in July and his latest directorial effort comes to Netflix this Friday. Kaufman adapted I’m Thinking of Ending Things from lain Reid’s novel of the same name. [...]
Mon Ami, Mekas
Filmmaker, poet, critic and philosopher Jonas Mekas passed away on January 23 at the age of 96. The wildly creative and willfully cantankerous Mekas was a champion of experimental cinema and a film critic whose taste and style was ahead of its time. Mekas is credited with getting Andy Warhol to try his hand at [...]
Cinema de la Sandra
Over the October season of horror I was watching lots of classic monsters and murder flicks and my wife and I also binged on old YouTube videos from the various Joe Bob Briggs’ movie series which featured the eponymous Joe Bob presenting films like a 1990s version of classic horror hosts of the 1960s and [...]
Experimental Defiance
The Defy Film Festival returns to Studio 615 in East Nashville this weekend. With that in mind I wrote this primer on experimental film for this week’s The Contributor. Pick up a paper from your neighborhood vendor! What we talk about when we talk about experimental film In the most general sense the term “experimental [...]
Watching Harlan Ellison’s Watching
I recently posted about the passing of science fiction pioneer cum pain in the ass, Harlan Ellison. The loss of Ellison has found me going back through lots of written reviews and obits as well as checking out a bunch of videos and recordings on YouTube. One of the things I like best about Harlan [...]
Stephen’s Suffering Screens
Now that the new IT film has become a huge hit I thought I’d follow-up on my post about the movie last week. I’m not surprised that the film has done as well as it has, and I’m also not surprised to hear that the movie’s success has lead to another King property getting snatched-up [...]
Jarman’s Jubilee
This year we celebrate the 75th birthday of British filmmaker Derek Jarman. Jarman was born on January 31, 1942. I’m always discovering and then keeping tabs on these timely anniversaries of our countercultural forebears, and I’m happy to highlight this one even if I’m getting to it about 7 months too late. The good news [...]
Black Spy Story
I love a tense spy story, and there’s always another take on the genre in the next book on the shelf or the next film on the screen. Of course, many of these books and films are based on real life heroes whose spycraft outed enemy spies, uncovered covert plans or even “eliminated” human targets. [...]
Hobo Visions
John T. Davis’s 1992 documentary, Hobo, finds the BBC filmmaker tagging along with a modern day train-hopper — a Vietnam vet who goes by the hobo handle of “Beargrease.” On their travels we learn about the century old symbol system that American itinerant workers still use to communicate important information to their travelling brothers and [...]
No Joke
I haven’t found Alan Moore’s reaction to Batman: The Killing Joke being made into an animated feature, but given his previous reactions to cinematic adaptations of his creations I doubt he’s very excited at the prospect. I’m a fan of Moore’s and I’ve enjoyed some of the adaptations of his work more than others. I’m [...]
