Random viewing, short takes

Sennia Nanua gives a riveting performance as Melanie, The Girl with All the Gifts (Colm McCarthy, 2016)

A decidedly mixed bag of recent viewing; a pair of young adult zombie stories — the Maze Runner Trilogy (2014-18) and the small-scale The Girl with All the Gifts (2016); a taut ’50s prison escape noir (Crashout, 1955) and a polished new crime noir (Dragged Across Concrete, 2018); a minor, dull thriller (All the Devil’s Men, 2018); and a bloated, enervatingly pretentious remake of a genre classic (Suspiria, 2018).

Remaking and undoing horror

For some reason, I just watched Zack Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004). I’d seen it when it first came out and found it pointless, but since then have discovered an odd, inexplicable appeal in Snyder’s work. He’s a lousy storyteller, with little sense of narrative pacing, but has an undeniable talent for […]

Restoration and Revisionism

In their joint commentary track on the Masters of Cinema DVD/Blu-Ray release of the newly restored Metropolis, David Kalat and Jonathan Rosenbaum express some concern that this new version will cause the disappearance of all previous versions. Why should this be a problem? After all, the “restored” Metropolis is the closest we’ll ever get to […]

Blasts from the past

Movie Ad Mania

Binging on Twilight Time

Sex in Movies: narrative interruptus

An unforeseen drawback of digital projection

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