Amber Sparks, Author at Bright Wall/Dark Room

If John Frankenheimer's Seconds came out today, with its horror lens firmly trained on themes of extreme plastic surgery, dread of aging, and get-happy-quick schemes, it would likely have found a ready A24 audience and a series of Oscar nods. But in 1966, audiences hated it.

Some Guy in an Ape Suit: On Why the ‘76 Kong is Good, Actually

Amber Sparks·

Issue 146: 1976

To my mind, the 1976 version succeeds better than any other Kong remake, simply because it understands one key idea: King Kong is a story about an ape.

Coming from a Place: Community in the Films of Hayao Miyazaki

Amber Sparks·

Issue 140: Community

Community isn’t just for comfort in Miyazaki’s world—it serves an important function as a hallmark of interdependence, a vital theme in most of his films. Miyazaki is deeply concerned with how humans, animals, spirits, and the natural world can live in balance with one another, or at least strive to.

The Style is the Substance

Amber Sparks·

Issue 135: Screwballs

The most enchanting thing about The Hudsucker Proxy is its commitment to the bit. The Coen brothers put all their cards on the table, wholly investing in a fictional world that borrows from the past while bargaining on the future.

Aspirational Ghosts: The Films of Tim Burton and the Internet Death Wish

Amber Sparks·

Extras

Tim Burton’s most lauded films are famously full of death. But they’re also full of would-be ghosts, characters who linger in the margins of living.

Heartburn: Heat as Catalyst in Adaptations of Tennessee Williams

Amber Sparks·

Issue 61: Heat

Tennessee Williams plays are full of many things—verbal gymnastics most of all—but the film versions will always be, for me, about the lush, swollen catalysts of deep summer.

Seconds on Seconds: Resurrection in Face and Film

Some Guy in an Ape Suit: On Why the ‘76 Kong is Good, Actually

Coming from a Place: Community in the Films of Hayao Miyazaki

The Style is the Substance

Aspirational Ghosts: The Films of Tim Burton and the Internet Death Wish

Heartburn: Heat as Catalyst in Adaptations of Tennessee Williams