1980s Style Rocks in Neo-Noir Against All Odds
LA at dawn. Silhouettes of high-rises, bungalows and lines of palm trees merge together into a glowing mist. The urban…
Recent Posts
The Big Picture Podcast: Poltergeist
In this, our first Big Picture podcast, Editor-in-chief Gabriel Solomons and Editor Thomas Puhr discuss the 1982 horror classic Poltergeist,…
Screengem: The Polaroid Pictures in The Verdict (Sydney Lumet, 1982)
Rock bottom. While we’ve all seen it portrayed in countless movies, have any of us actually hit it? In a…
Rebirth and reconciliation in Kon Ichikawa’s The Burmese Harp
After the capitulation of the Empire of Japan on 15 August 1945, Private Mizushima (Shoji Yasui) does not join the…
Breaking the Rules of a Leading Lady – Bette Davis in The Letter
I recently re-watched The Letter (1940) on what was one of the summer’s first hot nights. Actually I may make it…
Four Frames: Deliverance (John Boorman, 1972)
James Dickey’s novel opens with a map being unrolled. Disconcerting – “curling and snapping back whenever one of us turned…
Journey Into the Human Heart: Takeshi Kitano’s Kikujiro
Kikujiro (Kikujiro no natsu, Japan, 1999) is a film about a boy – 9-year-old Masao (Yusuke Sekiguchi) – who leaves…
Screengem: The Red Shawl from The Sisters Brothers (Jacques Audiard, 2018)
Ms. Amelia Partridge is never seen at any point during the 122 minute runtime of Jacques Audiard’s 2018 wistful comedy-western…
The Searing Style of Jacques Deray’s La piscine
A rectangular swimming pool framed by shaded stones and trees under the blinding sun, each element a character in itself….
