John Waters’ Cecil B. Demented (2000) asks the tough questions like “what kind of shlock is Hollywood turning out these days” and “can you scorch the roots of starlet to the point that she goes full Batty Hearst” (Patty the batty even appears in the film). As usual, Waters follows a gang of punks and outcasts in Baltimore, though with a(nother) twist. This group wants to make the great American outlaw film—Easy Rider (1969) in the style of G.G. Allin.... Read more
“Mystics” get a bad rap these days. Casting a wide net as I prepared to write my dissertation, I recall checking out a book called something like Marxism and Mysticism, expecting a life-changing mash-up of the material and the spiritual. Instead, it was a book almost entirely about why proletarians don’t get that they’re the subject of history. Fair enough, I suppose. But even more mundane thinking places the “mystical” in the realm of the purely obfuscatory: religious nuts, tarot... Read more
This really ought to be about David Lynch. But I can’t bring myself to give the man short shrift, to jot down a few thoughts to be done with it. More often than not I freely draft these mini reviews as a way to keep my typing fingers limber, creatively speaking anyway. Some weeks I can give them the time they deserve; others, I can do little more than channel a mouthful of air and hope for the best. Lynch... Read more
I had a bad week. I mean a really bad one. This was a Stroczek (1977) kind of week, the kind that separates the boys from the men and definitively and unreservedly placed me on the side of the boys. There was no lesson to the last seven days, no positive one anyway. But, of course, having such a bad time leads, nevertheless, to questions. Questions like: how does one go on? And, most important of all, what movie should... Read more
Great expectations sour easily. And, no matter what John Crowe Ransom would have us believe, we encounter art in history and (most lamentably of all) in particular moods. When a cold waylays me, soup nourishes, but it doesn’t taste the same. When you’re depressed beyond human understanding, Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2011) elicits nothing but caustic remarks and other vituperations (don’t ask). In a word, we, like, live in time and space, man. What, then, do I make... Read more
As much as I love Max Shreck’s portrayal of Count Orlok in 1922’s Nosferatu, the “vampire” has long been one man to me (unless Bill Skarsgård changes matters!): Klaus Kinski. Kinski, of course, was Werner Herzog’s greatest frenemy. Their on-set battles were legendary, as was Kinski’s violent personal life. Who else could have played Count Orlok in the German New Wave filmmaker’s Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)? What makes his performance stand out, however, is not his aggression or rage. Quite... Read more
Why you! Yes, you! What day is today? Unfortunately, not yet Christmas Day, when we can expect both the anniversary of the savior’s birth as well as the release of Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu (2024). Like any cultured moviegoer, I have been lighting my Advent candles, so to speak. In the lead up to the auteur’s newest release, my plan has been to watch as many adaptations of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) as possible. We’ve got Murnau’s 1922 silent classic; there... Read more
Our Horace? Paul Verhoeven, or so stands his reputation. His Hollywood run from Robocop (1987) to Starship Troopers (1997) has made him the darling of a couple generations of American Letterboxd enthusiasts. And rightly so! Few have dissected the American body politic with such precision. And certainly none has ever done so sporting such a wry smirk. Over the years, I’ve taken in a number of Verhoeven’s films, and I’ve loved every last one. It was only last week, however,... Read more
I’m late to the party. Ricky Lau’s Mr. Vampire (1985) spawned several sequels and seems to have been something of a smash success in Hong Kong and beyond. It inspired (again, as I understand) many entries in the Jiangshi genre, a species of B-movie about hopping zombie vampires from Chinese folklore. Knowing a bit about these things must, I assume, make the films more comprehensible. I, however, had none of that knowledge. No. For me, Mr. Vampire was hilarious, confounding—an... Read more
War is one of our favorite abstractions. I grew up playing map-based strategy games, the kind in which you pick seneschals, set tax policy, and send figurine-stand-ins off to their deaths. How many divisions does the pope have? How long are my supply lines? Yes, I’d like to enslave the population after we take the city. We need the labor. No one likes to think about the families annihilated or the sex crimes, the long nights spent in fear and... Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In