Teknolust: Four Tildas is better than One

by Cláudio Alves

We live in a time when what was once conjecture is becoming a perilous reality, dreams of advanced tech crashing into the nightmare of actual artificial intelligence. Facing these newborn terrors of our digital age, the Criterion Channel looks back. Spanning fifty years of film history, a collection of 17 titles investigates how cineastes have approached the topic of AI, from decades when it was just narrative device or metaphor, to our present state of sci-fi as a direct response to concrete real-world anxieties.

This cinematic tasting menu of techno-cinema offers many gustative possibilities, though none more surprising than Lynn Hershman-Leeson's Teknolust. Criminally underseen upon its 2002/2003 release, the unorthodox comedy posits a scenario where Tilda Swinton plays four roles, mad scientist Rosetta Stone and her three cybernetic creations cum clones – Ruby, Marinne, and Olive…

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A Marilyn Monroe Top Ten

by Cláudio Alves

In June, we don't just celebrate Pride. For those in the know, it's also the time to honor the immortal memory of Marilyn Monroe, born in the dying breaths of spring, June 1926. As a birthday present to her fans, the Criterion Channel organized a sampling of the actress' best films, making a delicious collection everyone should check out. Inspired by that list, here's my own selection of Marilyn's peak, her ten most excellent performances in a career, a life, cut tragically short. After all, one mustn't confuse the iconographic impact with a lack of substance beyond the surface. Too many have done that already. 

Marilyn Monroe was a tremendous thespian, so seamless that people, in her time and our own, still assume character and interpreter were one and the same. In any case, let's forego defensiveness for joyful exultation. Without further ado, here's the Marilyn Monroe top ten, in chronological order, unranked…

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Erotic Thrillers: Part 4 – Naughty Nineties

by Cláudio Alves

THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS (1990) Paul Schrader

The last time we checked on the Criterion Channel's Erotic Thrillers collection, it was to consider the voyeuristic properties of late-80s cinema. Moving on to the next decade, let's get over the nineties in one go. During this era, the erotic thriller reached its apotheosis of influence and trashiness, gradually fading into obsolescence as the millennium approached. It was an epoch of Fatal Attraction copycats and prestige-infused sensuality, a final resurgence of neo-noir aspirations, the rise and fall of Joe Eszterhas, Sharon Stone's stardom, and direct-to-video sleaze. Criterion traces these arcs through eleven titles, spotlighting great cinema and irredeemable garbage with the same gusto…

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Erotic Thrillers: Part 3 – Bare Witnesses

by Cláudio Alves

Making your way through the Criterion Channel's Erotic Thrillers collection, you'll start noticing a recurring concept here and there. One of the most prevalent is voyeurism (peeping toms or bystanders) twisted by the advent of violence. That very idea can lead to a consideration of the audience as another variation of the voyeur, whether in a critique or apologia. Fear and desire often mix, the horrified spectator enlivened by the hideousness they just saw even as trauma lingers in the psyche. Excited by danger and drunk on terror, they're laid bare for the camera in more ways than one.

As our cinematic odyssey reaches the end of the eighties, we encounter three tales of eroticized witnessing – Curtis Hanson's The Bedroom Window, Bill Condon's Sister, Sister, and the program's first woman-directed picture, Sollace Mitchell's Call Me…

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Erotic Thrillers: Part 2 – "Body Double" is one sleazy masterstroke!

by Cláudio Alves

Our voyage through the Criterion Channel's Erotic Thrillers collection continues. Only this time, only one movie. Mind you, that wasn't the initial design, but plans were thwarted when confronted with what's bound to become a new favorite – Brian De Palma's 1984 Hitchcock homage sui generis, Body Double. The thing demanded full attention, a drill held low and ready to fuck to death whoever dared to ignore its call. So, it's time to kill morality where it stands, bury good taste while you're at it, and surrender to the wild ride. Let's go down the rabbit hole into Vioporn wonderland…

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