May reading and viewing of Ashley Vaught in 2022. Best of: "One Crazy Summer" by Rita Williams-Garcia, "Dubliners", and "Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy" by Ryusuke Hamaguchi
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Essays, comments, and asides (as well as witty one-liners) about film or cinema.
Narcoleptically Read & Watched: April 2022
How do you read and watch narcoleptically? Binging series and reading sparingly, here and there.
Continue reading...“Night Hunter” (2018) is no “Night of the Hunter” (1955)
"Night Hunter" (2018), a weak serial killer thriller, is no "Night of the Hunter" (1955), a film next to "Citizen Kane" (1940) in the pantheon of film history.
Continue reading...Stanley Kubrick’s “The Killing” (1956): Misanthropy Run Amok
"The Killing" makes murder a spectacle, something beautiful, peopled with a group of ne’er-do-wells whose destruction we will undoubtedly enjoy.
Continue reading...Denis Villeneuve’s “Incendies” (2010): Seeking Expiation
In Denis Villeneuve’s 2010 film "Incendies" siblings seek a brother and father never known to deliver letters from their recently deceased mother.
Continue reading...René Clément’s “Forbidden Games” (1952): Mourning as Indifference
"Forbidden Games" (1952) tells a story of how children, uninitiated in the rituals of mourning, recognize the loss of those dearest through substitution.
Continue reading...Ain’t it cool?!: “John Wick” (2014)
The culture of the exotic, fascinating underworld thrills us in “John Wick,” not merely the well-choreographed gun-fu.
Continue reading...“Collateral” (2004): Notes on Michael Mann and Modern Urban Space
Notes on the debt to “Miami Vice,” the treatment of urban space, and stylistic gunplay in Michael Mann’s 2004 film “Collateral,” which stars Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise.
Continue reading...Joseph Losey’s “Accident” (1967): Elliptical yet fascinating
“Accident” narrates the sexual and professional tensions between an Oxford philosophy professor, his colleague, and his students, in events leading to the title event.
Continue reading...“Marauders” (on Netflix now) is Sooooo Bad
The 2016 film “Marauders” is a gunplay and bank robbery story that is not so bad that it’s good.
Continue reading...“Sudden Fear” (1952): Neither sudden nor fearful
“Sudden Fear” tells the tale of a playwright that married the wrong man and was almost written out of the script.
Continue reading...The Genius of Ozu’s “Good Morning” (1959)
Children in Good Morning protest social mores because they fail to appreciate the rules governing the relations of families and neighbors.
Continue reading...Is Writing About Bad Movies a Waste?
In which I performatively answer the question with reference to an episode of The Mandalorian, whether one should write about bad movies/televisions shows.
Continue reading...Joanna Hogg’s “Unrelated” (2007): The Desire to Belong
Reflections on an early film by the British film director Joanna Hogg, which I viewed in preparation for seeing The Souvenir (2019).
Continue reading...Does Philosophy Do Film?
“Clearly you are not a bowler”: Can film do philosophy? Can philosophy do film?
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