Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?): 3 Truth be told, we non-feminists find most self-proclaimed feminist cinephiles to be alienating –  perhaps deliberately so, considering the tendency to use terms like “institutional” in such a manner and to such a degree that one would get the impression that we live in a world where ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  8   * * * “[N]ightmares exist outside of logic, and there’s little fun to be had in explanations; they’re antithetical to the poetry of fear.” – Stephen King, “Why Hollywood can’t do horror,” ew.com (7/7/2008) * * * Writer/director David Robert Mitchell’s sophomore feature announces its ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  3    Why is it that certain individuals as talented as Amy Winehouse are born to fathers like Mitch Winehouse?  And why are they so obsessively and inextricably attracted to guys like Blake Fielder?  My suspicion is that the answers to those questions may be linked.  But ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  8 “Time: the final month of the decade that spawned that unprecedented and probably insupportable contradiction in terms, mass bohemia, popularly known as the counterculture.  Occasion: On America’s ultimate frontier some three hundred thousand bohemians come together with their chosen images, five formerly lower- to middle-class ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  3 As the colon in the title suggests (see e.g., Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)), George Miller – the original director of Mad Max (1979) – wants us to know that his new post-apocalyptic demolition derby is a “reboot” and not a “remake.”  I ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  4   The young Man encounters the Girl on a sidewalk in the middle of the night and invites her up to his apartment.  The Girl’s shirt bears Jane Seeberg’s Breathless stripes, but it is partially covered by a chador – at once a symbol of gender ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  7 I loved university life – an intellectually welcome space where one could study the bounds of knowledge and experience.  Eventually, however, I was expected to go forth into the “real world” and be productive.  I went right to work in a cubicle as a “professional,” ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  3   Human beings are hunters and gatherers – walking, talking contradictions whose ambitions trump even their biological imperatives.  Yet, with all of our success as a species, at this point in our history, so many hunters and gathers are resigned to cramped spaces – apartments, cubicles, ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  3   Does the damage from a loss of privacy in conducting our daily activities extend beyond those who have “something to hide”?  Absolutely.  It should go without saying that we change our behavior – consciously and unconsciously – when we know we are being watched, no ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  3 Out of all of the “prestige” projects that inundated movie goers in 2014, actress/co-producer Jessica Chastain’s “labor of love,” The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, is a hell of a lot more ambitious than Jennifer Aniston’s Cake or Reese Witherspoon’s Wild.  Following in the footsteps of ... Read More »