Reviews by Lovely Bones
Content Warning For: Discussions of violence historical and otherwise, and embeds of disturbing imagery. Before the Blair Witch, before the Cannibal Holocaust and the band Spinal Tap,[footnote]And the rest of Christopher Guest’s career, of course.[/footnote] the scripted, fictionalized use of … Continue reading Succinct Cinema: The Filmography of Peter Watkins is Radicalism, Personified
or the Commodification of Backstage Narratives. There is a distinct trajectory at work in the evolution of narratives surrounding the notions of the “magic of movie-making,” what could be otherwise considered the cinematic equivalent of Künstlerroman, or most simply the … Continue reading Succinct Cinema: Lost in a Full Tilt Boogie
A Bostonian bartender in Los Angeles, Troy Duffy sold a film script for $300 grand, with several other lucrative deals immediately subsequent, and in all his pride and excitement, asked two film student friends and bar regulars to start documenting … Continue reading Succinct Cinema: Ugly Truths of Indie Film
Early in his essay film Los Angeles Plays Itself, Thom Andersen says that “Los Angeles is where the relationship between reality and representation is muddled,” and although that ambiguity is by its own nature complicated in such ways that shall … Continue reading Succinct Cinema: Exiled from Where You Were and Where You Are
Content warning for discussion of violence, including but not limited to sexual violence. There is no word that captures the nature and subject of Jean-luc Godard’s film, Weekend, quite like bourgeoisie in both its French and Marxist connotations, embodying the dual nature … Continue reading Succinct Cinema: Absurdism as Class Warfare in Godard’s Weekend
This positively absurd jumble of a third sequel entitled Lethal Weapon 4 sets the unpleasant tone accordingly by opening with a white cop humiliating and endangering his black partner solely for his own amusement, right after the two melodramatically engage in … Continue reading Succinct Cinema: Lethal Weapon 4 – Dangerous and Confused
The shadow of history, the darkest and most criminal parts as many nations possess, weighs heavily, and a most frequent practice throughout the world is displacing connection and responsibility, trying by individuals and institutions alike to forget and encouraging the … Continue reading Succinct Cinema: Responsibility and Fascist Legacy for The Bravura Bavarian
In the scattered urban landscapes across many of Jim Jarmusch’s works, people can be cramped together yet miles apart, all emotionally adrift from each other in a sea of concrete and glass. In the particular 1990s New York of Jarmusch’s … Continue reading Succinct Cinema: Ghost Dog – The Ties That Bind
