It’s the end of another week, which means I’m sharing more links.
The week concluded on a sad note with the passing of Gene Hackman. I hold this actor very close to my heart as one of my earliest film memories is watching Richard Donner’s Superman. I don’t think anyone has played a better Luthor. He’s necessarily comics accurate, but he was a balance of funny and genuinely evil. IndieWire pays tribute to the late actor, and I have plans for a mini-series of some of Hackman’s best work planned for this summer.
In more recent years I have warmed up to the films of Gus Van Sant. This week Criterion shared an essay about Drugstore Cowboy. The thesis here is that Drugstore Cowboy is a very spiritual film. Our protagonist lives by a rigid code that has become a type of faith.
This essay on David Lynch and his use of kitsch is a great one. It explores popular critical reactions to the intense vulgarity present in his work, and how most audiences fail to understand that’s the surface level with a lot more going on beneath.
With the release of Oz Perkins’s The Monkey, Letterboxd provides with other cinematic objects that took on lives of their own.
With Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17 being released soon, BFI presents a review that talks about the film’s very clear political message about white nationalism.
The Edward Gorey-inspired opening to PBS’s Mystery always intrigued me as a kid. When I got my hands on his Amphigorey collections I was hooked. The Comics Journal was celebrating the artist’s body of work this week and reshared this article on his life.
PopCult Reviews 