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Fragment #37: Jack Conway on Romance and Illusion 22 Aug 2013 | 03:03 am
In case you thought complaining about how special effects are just not as exciting or authentic as real stunts, spectacle and peril, here is an article from a 1933 issue of the Hollywood Reporter, in ...
Spring Breakers Randomised 27 Jul 2013 | 02:56 am
Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers is an oddity wrapped up in a conventional teen-drama that warps into some kind of day-glo fever dream of bikinis, Britney, and assault rifles. Ostensibly the tale of f...
Pacific Rim 22 Jul 2013 | 07:15 pm
One of the signature images of the contemporary action blockbuster is of human operators manoeuvering artificial bodies. Whether it’s Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) in Avatar, operating a lanky blue ali...
Floating Weeds Randomised 8 Jul 2013 | 02:31 pm
The films of Yasujiro Ozu are probably the opposite of random in their structure and composition, so it seems rather perverse to make one his films the subject of this ongoing series of randomised fil...
345-Word Reviews: World War Z 5 Jul 2013 | 02:51 am
Neither the calamity that its troubled production might have led you to expect, nor the triumph that its $250 million price-tag should lead you to demand, World War Zed offers a number of delights. Th...
Naomi Watts Watch: The Impossible 4 Jul 2013 | 02:34 am
I’m hard-pressed to think of a less glamorous role for a high-profile actor in a recent mainstream movie than the one taken on by Naomi Watts in The Impossible. The last time I saw a character so thor...
345-word Reviews: Man of Steel 1 Jul 2013 | 09:27 pm
The critical orthodoxy has it that Man of Steel is a fine, pastoral origin-story for S******n, before it descends into an overlong, overloud finale. I agree with the second part of that assessment, bu...
Holy Motors Randomised 24 Apr 2013 | 03:33 pm
Holy Motors is a cinephile odyssey, taking its viewers on a linear, perhaps cyclical journey through a series of variations on film history, performance, and identity. Or, with its continually shiftin...
Spectacular Attractions Video Podcast #003: Michael Haneke’s Cache and the Politics of Privacy 24 Mar 2013 | 03:04 am
I have previously posted this lecture I gave to undergraduate students at the University of Exeter in 2010. But, while I previously had to split the video file into four separate chapters, I can now u...
Fragment #36: Suing Spielberg 21 Mar 2013 | 02:59 pm
In 1998, writer Stephen Kessler sued the makers of Twister (Steven Spielberg, Michael Crichton, Warner Bros and Universal studios), claiming that they had plagiarised his script “Catch the Wind”. At t...
