Film
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And This Is Word For Word: The Theory of Relatability and Rethinking Justin Long’s Face
There was a night last month where I couldn’t sleep. I had to be up early for another full day of screenings and filing at the Toronto International Film Festival, but my mind was cycling through a generic course of…
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The Eyeball #36: BRAKHAGE!!!
I taught another session of my Experimental Films as Writing Prompts class at Hugo House last night. This one we looked at some films by Stan Brakhage. At the outset of the class I admitted that I had no idea…
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Roger Ebert
“I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed the comments under someone else’s blog entry more.” Roger Ebert loves the comments on today’s “All Thumbs” piece.
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Notable San Francisco, This Week: 10/18-10/24
This week, the Porchlight Reading Series, Poetry and Jazz at Viracocha, yacht rock + psychedelia at the Blue Macaw, and Uberpup! Monday 10/18: Head over to the Verdi Club for the latest Porchlight Reading: The Animal Show, featuring Matt Baume,…
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All Thumbs: Roger Ebert and the Decline of Film Criticism
I hate Roger Ebert. This may not be the most tactful time to say so, what with his genuinely brave fight against cancer, his inspiring display of spirit and endurance, and the endless adulation all this has encouraged in the…
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Make It, Make It, Don’t Fake It: Trash Humpers
In a lush suburban neighborhood in the South, dogs bark, birds tweet, and the sun shines on basketball hoops hung over powered garage doors. By night, soccer fields and parking lots glow under streetlights, fluorescent crosses illuminate churches, and crickets…
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10/40/70 #25: The Hitch-Hiker
This ongoing experiment in film writing freezes a film at 10, 40, and 70 minutes, and keeps the commentary as close to those frames as possible. This week, I examine The Hitch-Hiker, directed by Ida Lupino (1953):
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Notable San Francisco, This Week: 10/11-10/17
This week in San Francisco, Twitter IRL, SOMArts asks How Do You Value Art?, more art at Hotel Biron, and even more art (and readings!) at Sub-Mission’s Skate This Art. Monday 10/11: Celebrate your inner nerd at the Commonwealth Club’s…
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The Boobs That Came Too Soon: An Account of the Melbourne Writers Festival
In late August the Melbourne Writers Festival cranked up again, celebrating its 25th anniversary. There were ten days of scheduled programming, most events jostled tight into two weekends. The official maxim of the festival this year was to ‘Expect the…
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The Rumpus Review of The Social Network: Suck It
At the end of The Social Network, a new indie flick that no one has ever heard of, I turned to my friend, and out of every intelligent comment I could have made, I said, “There was so much testosterone…
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Meghan Blalock’s Social Network
Meghan Blalock responds to today Daily Rumpus Email which concerned the new movie, The Social Network. ** The problem with David Carr’s rundown in the Times is that it assumes that because he’s older he knows what older people think,…
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Women in Trouble
While we usually classify films in terms of their genre, or their director, or the actors, what if, instead, we looked for visual patterns that linked them? An auteur theory based purely on images, not the director.