Year of the Month: James Williams on THE HITCH-HIKER
If it’s difficult for female directors in Hollywood now, it was almost impossible in the…
Closing the Crypt: The Last Days of EC Comics, Part 1
While the “Golden Age” is mostly used now by DC and Marvel to milk nostalgia…
No Way Out: Persia on the Inescapable Karma of INFERNAL AFFAIRS
I still haven’t seen The Departed. I’m sure it’s good, or at least competent, and…
Year of the Month: Son of Griff on THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE
Fritz Lang’s German films are often called “art films” by American critics and exhibitors, largely…
Year of the Month: Doug Wykstra on THE BIG SLEEP and LADY IN THE LAKE
“People don’t talk to me like that!” In both 1946 Raymond Chandler adaptations, a woman…
Authoritarian Agonistes: Son of Griff on ’71’s Scopophilic Supercops
In the 1970s, conservative American mythologies confronted historical realities. The Mai Lai massacre, the Kent…
HITMAN: Blood Brothers and Blood Debts (Part 2 of 2)
Hitman’s balance of the silly and the deadly serious tipped more towards comedy in the…
Hilarity, Heartbreak, and HITMAN (Part 1 of 2)
A year ago, I talked about the paradoxes that drive The Boys author Garth Ennis’s…
Year of the Month: THAT NIGHT’S WIFE
Yasujirō Ozu has earned his place in film history as the most serene of directors,…
But It’s Mine: Persia on Ownership and Control in the World of FARGO
One of the most famous lines in the Coen brothers’ Oscar-winning Fargo comes close to…