This is a film about the machine age. Chaplin’s lovable character is repeatedly swallowed up by machines both literal and figurative: the gigantic gear-filled edifice at the factory where he works, social movements, and the government. Set against the mechanization of the modern age, he Read More …
When adolescents Sam and Suzy (Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) run away from their homes to scout the trails of New Penzance Island, they are actually running toward a world full of joy and wonder where they are understood and loved, a desire expressed through Read More …
Chaplin intoxicates us from the very first scene. As the silent era passes, he graces the human voice with soap bubbles, whistles, and the most poignant title cards ever screened. He lets the touch of a hand work the miracle that technology cannot. And he Read More …
A seemingly perfect paradise is created for the home of insurance salesman Truman Burbank, who unknowingly serves as the protagonist for an elaborate television production broadcasting his life to the world. Truman (Jim Carrey) serves as the ordinary guy—the “true man”—navigating the world presented to Read More …
Widely ranked among Hollywood’s greatest spiritual parables, Groundhog Day has been claimed by existentialists, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and Christians of all communions. Projection? In specifics, perhaps; in evocative power, no. A comic fantasy conceit—a single day Bill Murray keeps reliving—occasions sharply funny soundings in helplessness, power, consequences, Read More …
Adapted from a Buddhist morality tale, Onibaba – literally translated “demon woman” – never shocks, but rather haunts with the baleful atmosphere of its natural landscape. In fourteenth-century feudal Japan, the peasant wife and mother of a soldier have taken to slaying lost samurai for their valuables Read More …
Jacques Tourneur’s The Curse of the Demon follows skeptical psychologist John Holden (Dana Andrews) as he travels to England to debunk a Satanic cult led by the affable Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall MacGinnis). But, as it’s mentioned in the film, “[The devil] is most dangerous when he’s pleasant,” Read More …
What Jame Gumb (aka “Buffalo Bill”) does to his victims is a crime, but calling it that seems insufficient. When Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) finally puts him down, it is not an act of punishment but self-preservation. Perhaps because of centuries of rhetorical appropriation, it Read More …
The Tod Browning/Bela Lugosi earliest faithful-to-the-book rendition of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel still remains one of the most iconic vampire films today. Lugosi brings a power and presence to his role as the most famous monster in literature, representative of the devil as described in Read More …
Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now tells the story of a couple, John and Laura Baxter (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie), who are forced to reckon with past family tragedy when they meet a strange couple of women who claim to be able to communicate with their deceased Read More …