Still from Girls State Monroe County NOW President TammyJo Eckhart, PhD, explains why the organization recommends the 2024 documentary Girls State. All 50 states of this United States of America host a weeklong program attended by young people picked by a sponsoring American Legion (or American Legion Auxiliary Unit in the case of “Girls States”)…. Read more »
The Female Monster of Flesh for Frankenstein Underground Film Series curator Justin Bonthuys contextualizes Paul Morrissey’s cult classic. In his book on comedy-horror films, screenwriter and actor Bruce Hallenbeck describes the irony in the script of Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) as “[giving] the film a winking detachment, so that you find yourself convulsed with laughter… Read more »
Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett in Carol Jesse Pasternack describes why Todd Haynes’s 2015 classic is a paragon of the filmmaker’s work with period pieces. When I first saw Carol, I thought it would be a perfect film to watch on TCM in a few decades. Everything about that film’s technical style felt like it… Read more »
Still from Damned If You Don’t Underground Film Series curator Justin Bonthuys gives a brief introduction to the three shorts by Su Friedrich and Paula Gauthier that comprise the upcoming program Catechism-ically Flawed. Catechism-ically Flawed explores two different approaches to how cinema can be used to explore and express queer experiences and identities. Su Friedrich… Read more »
Original poster for Death Becomes Her Jesse Pasternack explains how Robert Zemeckis’s cult comedy achieves its laughs and special effects. Death Becomes Her (1992) is one of Robert Zemeckis’s best films because it expertly melds two of the most famous sides of himself as a director. They are, respectively, his exceptional ability to use film… Read more »
Original poster for The Raid: Redemption (2011) Jesse Pasternack looks at what makes The Raid: Redemption such a jaw-dropping action spectacle. I have followed the same routine when I watch a movie so I can write about it since I was in high school. I get a journal and something to write with (sometimes a… Read more »