Tag Archives: screen

How to Act

Posted on June 29, 2021 by JMN

“You talk and I listen; then I talk and you listen. That’s how it works.” (90-year-old actor Robert Duvall on the art of acting, interviewed by Stephen Colbert, June 2021) Duvall’s peer Clint Eastwood is credited with expressing his technique … Continue reading →

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Less Majesty

Posted on December 1, 2020 by JMN

Lèse-maj·es·té: “the insulting of a monarch or other ruler.” Oliver Dowden, the UK culture secretary, wants Netflix to play a “health warning” before The Crown so viewers are aware that the historical drama is a work of fiction. “It’s a … Continue reading →

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Horror of the Underseen

Posted on June 9, 2020 by JMN

Violence and gore, revolting and horrific in real life, are revolting and banal in the movies. What’s horrifying is how hard it is to find good horror in entertainment. Edward Tew chainsaws cleanly through the halitosis: A lot of genre … Continue reading →

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The Eye in Love

Posted on December 30, 2019 by JMN

This review treats several films about gay female love. The reviewer is a film maker. Noteworthy for me is her emphasis on the ocular dimension of romantic attraction. The use of “one’s self” instead of “oneself” for the reflexive pronoun … Continue reading →

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Little Endians, Big Endians

Posted on November 21, 2019 by JMN

For me,… cinema was about revelation… It was about characters — the complexity of people and their contradictory and sometimes paradoxical natures… Many of the elements that define cinema as I know it are there in Marvel pictures. What’s not … Continue reading →

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Sequelae

Posted on October 29, 2019 by JMN

[“The existing Hollywood order, the current pop-cultural regime,”] is built, to an extent that would have been unfathomable even 20 years ago, on the commercial exploitation of what was once called “genre” entertainment — the comic-book movie especially, the Marvel … Continue reading →

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Where Cate Sits

Posted on August 14, 2019 by JMN

“My father was born in Texas. My mother is Australian. I’m married to a British citizen. So I sit in some weird fork in the road.” (Cate Blanchett, Stephen Colbert Show, 8-12-19)

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Tuba Career

Posted on August 10, 2019 by JMN

As for what comes after the life-altering experience of “GLOW” — what will define her next persona — [Betty] Gilpin doesn’t know, but she has a hunch. “It feels like I’m in this room that I didn’t know existed, and … Continue reading →

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TV America Breaks News

Posted on July 12, 2019 by JMN

Talky talky head head, talky head, talky head. Heady heady talk talk, heady talk, heady talk. Talky head, talky head, screeny fully talky head. Heady talk, heady talk, fully screeny heady talk. Repeaty-peat, repeaty-peat, peat-peat, repeaty, Peat-repeaty peat-peat, peaty-peaty poot. … Continue reading →

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Language As Landscape

Posted on June 4, 2019 by JMN

“Deadwood” (HBO, 2004-2006) created by David Milch, repelled and astounded me when I caught it adventitiously in re-run several years ago. I couldn’t look away from it as I kept thinking, “What the hell is this? It’s amazing!” I told … Continue reading →

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