Guest post by David Church. If or when a person views pornography today, it’s not likely in public, in polite company, or with aesthetic appreciation in mind. This is because mainstream pornography is often considered cheaply made, politically damaging, or crudely single-minded in its purpose: turning a person on or helping get them off. While… Read more »
Several factors contributed to the box office underperformance of the Karyn Kusama-directed film Jennifer’s Body in 2009 — chief among them was the marketing, which relied heavily on selling the movie as a slasher with Megan Fox as the eye candy for a primarily male audience. Although the focal point of the film is the… Read more »
Guest post by Caleb Allison. Paramount’s erotic and atmospheric ghost story The Uninvited (Lewis Allen, 1944) sets up a salacious mystery before one sees even a single frame of the film. Who, exactly, is being uninvited and from what? Turning the film’s simple yet provocative title into an interrogative proposition leads us down a tortuous… Read more »
Full transparency: all Blu-rays reviewed were provided by Kino Lorber, Criterion, Code Red, and Cohen Film Collection. The semester has started, summer is coming to a close, but the Blu-ray reviews are back in full swing. If there was a theme to this month’s titles, it would be stellar performances and star personas, with the… Read more »
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma, 2019) revolves around a refusal of a woman to be looked at. Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) will not sit for her own portrait, because she knows that portrait is the means to take her into an unwanted marriage with an unknown man. It’s the 18th century, though, and… Read more »
In the 2003 film The Matrix Revolutions, Hugo Weaving as the character Agent Smith stands over Keanu Reeves’ beaten and muddied Neo. It’s a short reprieve in their baroque and awe-inspiring final confrontation. Rain pouring down, lightning flashing as billions (with a “B”) of copy-and-pasted Smiths watch as the original Smith grits his teeth with… Read more »