All posts by Jesse Cataldo »
Oeuvre: De Palma: Home Movies
By 1980, Brian De Palma had hit his stride. Gradually building a singular patchwork aesthetic while slowly accruing mainstream cachet, he had overcome a series of early-decade defeats to establish himself as one of
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The Pirogue
Set mostly in the wide swath of Atlantic between Senegal and Spain, Moussa Touré’s The Pirogue exists in a similar state of cross-genre flux: part Lifeboat-style seafaring chamber play, part socially conscious border-hopping adventure
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Oeuvre: De Palma: Obsession
Brian De Palma’s early movies pushed their tension at a distinct nexus between the audience and the film itself, employing disorienting, fourth-wall breaking moments that seem designed specifically to make viewers uncomfortable. Clearest of
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Oeuvre: De Palma: Phantom of the Paradise
More than any film before it, 1974’s Phantom of the Paradise establishes Brian de Palma the auteur, the thorny iconoclast and inveterate cinema fetishist, more concerned with a fidgety succession of odd angles and
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Oeuvre: De Palma: The Wedding Party
Although his third release, The Wedding Party, was actually Brian De Palma’s first film, a 1963-shot joint effort between the young auteur, Sarah Lawrence theater professor Wilford Leach and fellow student Cynthia Monroe. The
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Pusher
Nicolas Winding Refn’s 1996 film Pusher isn’t’ the greatest movie ever made. It’s a rudimentary first effort characterized by the cheap looking earmarks of the form, marred by uncreative hand-held photography and a humdrum
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Re-make/Re-model: Rio Bravo (1959) vs. Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
Remakes have been around nearly as long as Hollywood itself, and not always for the reasons or with the results you’d think. Spectrum Culture’s new feature Re-Make/Re-Model will examine the long history of cinematic
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Rediscover: Tabu
Rediscover is a series of reviews highlighting past releases that have flown under the radar and now deserve a second look. Originally conceived as a collaborative co-production between directors Robert Flaherty and F.W. Murnau,
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The House I Live In
America’s War on Drugs has been in full swing since the early 1970s, racking up over a trillion dollars in expenses, a price tag that should by now have led to some serious change.
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