Daniel Radcliffe in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story Ben van Welzen breaks down how musician biopics like Weird: The Al Yankovic Story and I’m Not There go beyond the usual tropes to match the allure of their subjects. What is the purpose of the musician’s biopic? The cynic may say the films take advantage of… Read more »
Leni Riefenstahl directing a film for the Nazi Party Ben van Welzen considers how film was used to both exalt and expose the evil of WWII, as demonstrated by the opposing approaches and ideologies of Leni Riefenstahl and Alain Resnais. Film is propaganda. An effective film penetrates the mind, circumvents rational thought, and — in… Read more »
Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot Ben van Welzen details how the Austrian filmmaker’s past informed his work and subsequently elevated American cinema. In 1906, a boy was born in a 10-square-mile town in a country that no longer exists, about to spend the first three decades of his life in… Read more »
Peter Sellers as Jacques Clouseau Michaela Owens takes a deep dive into the various iterations of the iconic detective at the heart of the Pink Panther franchise. Although Peter Sellers’s career offers many, many chameleonic characters — some even in the same film — there is perhaps one who looms the largest in the cultural… Read more »
Michael B. Jordan as characters Smoke and Stack in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners Alex Brannan considers the current state of independence and auteurism in American cinema. We could begin by saying that the auteur theory is, always has been, flimsy. This is to say: the question of whether a film contains a singular author is never… Read more »
Still from Blade Runner with added significance in the director’s cut Ben van Welzen examines the trend of filmmakers returning to their films with modern technology as they contemplate their original or new vision for their work. “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not… Read more »