My writing – about music, not film, at the moment – can currently be found at my new blog: reddy brown objects.
Inspector Bellamy
Claude Chabrol's final film, Inspector Bellamy, begins with a dedication and ends with a quote, and in between is one of the French mast...
The Golem (1920)
The Golem is one of the classics of German expressionist horror. Released the same year as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, it's neither as ...
The Night of the Hunted
Jean Rollin's The Night of the Hunted is a typically moody, abstractly haunting film from the idiosyncratic horror auteur. More even tha...
Comedy of Power
Claude Chabrol's Comedy of Power is somewhat ironically titled, and knowingly so, because there's little that's funny about this...
Unconscious London Strata/The Mammals of Victoria
Unconscious London Strata is one of Stan Brakhage's gloriously abstract studies of light and color, with virtually no grounding in concr...
Three Kurt Kren shorts, 1969-1982
[This is part of a sporadic series in which I explore the work of the Austrian DVD label Index DVD. This company has released a great deal o...
Hell Bent
Hell Bent is a rare early John Ford Western, once thought lost, one of the director's many collaborations with the actor Harry Carey, wi...
The Battle of the River Plate
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Battle of the River Plate is a scrupulously authentic film about a real World War II battle,...
The Bridesmaid
The Bridesmaid is a somewhat typical film for Claude Chabrol, a chilly, unsettling, at times darkly humorous movie that's nominally a th...
It (1927)
Roaring Twenties sex symbol Clara Bow has always been most associated with It, the film from which she earned her most enduring nickname, as...
Anatomy of Hell
Catherine Breillat has never exactly been a subtle filmmaker, or a particularly easy one to grapple with. Her films are often bluntly provoc...
The Law
Jules Dassin's The Law is a very strange, disjointed movie. A Franco-Italian co-production, set in a small Italian fishing village and s...
Xala
Ousmane Sembene's Xala is a sharp, bitter satire of Senegalese independence, lampooning the corruption and incompetence of the sham self...
Wild Reeds
In Wild Reeds, director André Téchiné dramatizes the moment right on the cusp between adolescence and adulthood, right at the moment when te...
Just Pals
Just Pals is a warm, pleasant, low-key early silent from John Ford, a simple and rather loose film about a town bum and the young rail-ridin...
The Salvation Hunters
Josef von Sternberg's debut film, The Salvation Hunters, immediately gained him a reputation as a filmmaker worth watching and catapulte...
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
My Year In Culture, Part II: Music
Following Monday's 2012 in film list, here is my top 25 for the year in music. These lists are incomplete every year but it feels especi...
Monday, January 7, 2013
My 2012 In Culture, Part I: Film
Welcome to my annual week of year-end lists. As usual, my film list is not at all up-to-date on current releases, and instead lists the best...
Fascination
Fascination is a very apt title for a Jean Rollin film. Rollin's ethereal horror oeuvre revolves around the idea of fascination: fixatio...