Doc Corner: Women in music

By Glenn Dunks

At least once a year, we do a round-up of some of the music documentaries that are making the rounds. This year there is a particular focus on women in music with a range of titles covering pop (Kate Nash: Underestimate the Girl), punk and new wave (The Go-Go’s), rock (Suzy Q) and whatever it is that sits in between all of them (Sisters with Transistors)—and they of course sit alongside names like Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn in Ken Burns' Country Music, which we looked at recently.

I have actually already written about Liam Firmager and Tait Brady’s Aussie-made Suzi Q upon its local Australian release last year. I was impressed by its high energy retelling of the career of the “Devil Gate Drive” and "Can the Can" singer and guitarist Suzi Quatro. A rollicking is simply structured documentary that is appropriate daggy for the musician at its centre. You can read my full review at ScreenHub so let’s move on to the rest, which make for an entertaining dive through diverse musical stories.

Click to read more ...

The many faces of Hannibal Lecter

by Cláudio Alves

1991's The Silence of the Lambs won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, thus becoming the only horror movie to ever conquer that much-coveted prize. Still, overall, the film seems to owe more to the crime thriller, the police procedural and investigative manhunt than it does to the horror genre. However, one element plunges it right into the depths of cinematic nightmares. It's a character so malevolent that it often feels larger than life, like a primordial evil closer to the divine than to the human. We're talking about the monster that tops the AFI's greatest movie villains list, the role that earned Anthony Hopkins his Oscar and made us never look at Fava beans the same way ever again – Hannibal 'The Cannibal' Lecter…

Click to read more ...

Horror Actressing: Sheila Vand in "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night"

by Jason Adams

Watching A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night one's immediate thought might be of a shark, of a Jaws fin splitting the surface, as The Girl (Sheila Vand) skateboards down the inky Iranian streets of Bad Town, her chador trailing behind her like a nighttime tidal-wave no one can escape. A bit of Mephisto in Murnau's Faust too, whose sky-wide wings blot out the sun above that small smoky German village, rooftops only ankle-high, cartoonish and akimbo. There's Caligari brushed over this Bad Town -- the smokestacks and power stations, train cars, flat as a painted flap of cardboard. Sin City Expressionism against which our ageless hunter swerves, preys on all manner of beast, man, fat cat alike. 

But there's so much more to The Girl and how Vand brilliantly paints her -- she might be an Instant Icon of Neo-Western Horror but she's also kind of just a girl, standing in front of a boy...

Click to read more ...

Almost There: River Phoenix in "My Own Private Idaho"

This article is dedicated to Mark, one of our subscribers (thank you!), who requested a piece on River Phoenix -Editor.

by Cláudio Alves

It's difficult to write, it's difficult to think, about River Phoenix without the tragedy of his premature death casting a dark shadow over all other considerations. His acting is often talked about in terms of wasted potential, another facet of the same mythos that James Dean inhabits in the public consciousness. Sure, his film work is important, but only as far as it adds to the narrative of a flame that burned too bright and died out too soon. That can be a blessing to one's legacy, a promise of cultural immortality. However, it's also a curse that makes a young actor's amazing career into a footnote of a Hollywood tale of doom and gloom. River Phoenix was and is more than the protagonist of a real-life story about dying young. He's a great actor, one whose performances still have the power to amaze and impress, to enlighten and hurt.

This piece is about such a feat of acting, one that takes my breath away every time I gaze upon its magnificence. It's about River Phoenix in Gus van Sant's My Own Private Idaho…

Click to read more ...

The New Classics: Bridesmaids

By Michael Cusumano 

 

Scene: Food Poisoning
Okay, let’s talk poop jokes.

If I’m hesitant it’s not because I’m squeamish, but because I’ve found dissecting jokes to see how they work to be one of life’s less rewarding endeavors. On the other hand, I’ve noticed Bridesmaids’ uproarious food poisoning sequence seldom gets the respect it deserves. Often it’s acknowledged with some glib and subtly condescending remark along the lines of, “Ladies can be just as gross as the boys!” and I think that significantly undersells the scene. I mean, If we absolutely must make sweeping generalizations along gender lines, we would have to conclude Bridesmaids proves ladies do gross-out with infinitely more wit and sophistication than the boys... 

Click to read more ...