The stars at night turned deep to dust.
A Greatest Hits Post
Recently I got an influx of new subscribers, so I want to say thank you to all of you, as well as all my long-time readers. Although I am committed to writing my Weekly Directed By Women Viewing Guide, while I work as my Dad’s caretaker during his current health crisis I will have less time to write other kinds of pieces (though I am going to try my darnedest to write more when I can!). So I’m sharing some of my favorite pieces I’ve written for this newsletter since 2022. Please enjoy!
Social Distortion: Weegee's Marilyn
Unfortunately, I am still thinking about the catastrophic and grotesque disaster that is Andrew Dominik’s Blonde, his long-gestating adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’s book of the same name, itself a fictionalized account of the life and career of Marilyn Monroe. Neither are straight biography, and even if they were no biography (including autobiography)…
🛸 Where Have All The UFO Movies Gone? 🛸
On recent trip to visit my parents my dad got very excited about the idea of finally seeing Jordan Peele’s Nope. He had missed it last summer when it briefly played at my hometown theater (it only plays movies for three showings Friday through Sunday)…
We Had Faces Then.
My love for silent film grew slow, but very steady. Like a lot of people my first silent film was Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927). I still remember my dad’s face sometime in the early-90s when he found the film on VHS at some video store in the San Fernando Valley where we were visiting relatives. He could hardly wait fo…
The Golden Age of VHS Trailers and Promos
The other day I was playing Music Box Trivia, which is the trivia at the Music Box Theatre here in Chicago. One of the categories was pirates. It was a “guess the image” round, and one of the images was from Cutthroat Island, a notorious box office bomb starring Geena Davis and M…
[KVIFF Review] This is a Story of Power: "No Other Land"
![[KVIFF Review] This is a Story of Power: "No Other Land"](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lTZB!,w_1300,h_650,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffcba81bf-5819-4d0f-bb7b-0415178aef21_1400x788.jpeg)
Mostly filmed between the Summer of 2019 and early October 2023, No Other Land traces the slow destruction of the Palestinian villages of Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank. These are villages that have been marked on maps for over a cen…
Hope Floats is an Anti-Capitalist Romance
I always watch Hope Floats in September. Something about this Sandra Bullock romantic drama is just perfect for the late summer days as they fade into autumn. Directed by Forest Whitaker, produced by Lynda Obst, and written by Steven Rogers, the film has always been a comfort movie for…
Your Silent Face: John Gilbert
That’s right I am finally bringing this feature back! When I launched it last year with a profile of Mary Astor I fully intended to make it a semi-regular thing. Then life got in the way. But, because today is John Gilbert day on TCM’s Summer Under The Stars
What I'm Reading: Cinematic Memoirs
Obviously I have not posted a full reading recommendations post since last December, although I did do a post about the John Gilbert biography Dark Star during Summer Under the Stars in August. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing any reading though! I actually finished the books for this memoir-centric post before New York Film Festival in September …
🎄 Christmas Will Break Your Heart ❤️🩹
Christmas is my favorite time of the year. It’s also a time that evokes in me a lot of complex emotions rooted in past trauma. Five years ago a movie was released that spoke to me deeply about how those conflicting emotions can swirl all around you.
In Heaven (Everything is Fine)
I started to write this post several times now and each time I had to stop myself because there is just too much to say. This is very stream of consciousness.
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