Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street came about at a serendipitous time in the horror genre. The slasher boom of the late '70s and early '80s was in the ebbing phase of its lifespan, devolving into a sea of pale imitations and diluted formulas that stripped the genre of its visceral power. Gore, guts, … Continue reading Slasher Mom: The Birth of Freddy Krueger in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984)
Abel Ferrara's searing crime drama, King of New York, eschews many conventions of the gangster genre as we know it to visualize the dangers of both confronting his archetypal gangster, Frank White (Christopher Walken), as well as the hazardous nature of embodying this characterization. I say "characterization" because of Ferrara's proclivity for active roles within … Continue reading Talk is Cheap: The Lean Violence of Abel Ferrara’s KING OF NEW YORK (1990)
Zhangke Jia's Ash is the Purest White is a visually and emotionally chilling film that superficially is about a crumbling romance, but at its core covers themes of identity and the progression of self-worth and congruence with Chinese society. Jia uses evolving color patterns to establish the two worlds and the digression of two people … Continue reading A Story of Color: The Evolving Palette of Zhangke Jia’s Exquisite ASH IS THE PUREST WHITE (2018)
**There are some images that could be spoilers contained in this post, so beware if you haven't seen the film I just got done watching Lulu Wang's emotional, touching film, The Farewell, and I couldn't help but notice some similarities between some of the photography in this film and the films of masters like Kenji … Continue reading THE FAREWELL (2019) – Lulu Wang’s Masterful Use of Vertical Depth
**This article will contain spoilers and very graphic images from the film. You've been warned if you have a weak stomach or haven't seen the film Some people claim that the atrocities we commit in our fiction are those inner desires which we cannot commit in our controlled civilization, so they're expressed instead through our … Continue reading THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT (2018): An Essay on the Themes in Lars von Trier’s House of Corpses
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