Michael Mann’s Thief, like its protagonist, elides the romance in favor of efficiency. Frank’s me-against-the-world attitude is both armor and weapon in a one-man crusade to fund his American dream.
PositionStaff Writer
JoinedMay 28, 2017
Articles32
Sarah Welch-Larson writes about feminist theology, sad men in space, and stories about creation and agency. She is a member of Chicago Indie Critics, the co-writer of the Seeing and Believing newsletter, and the author of Becoming Alien: The Beginning and End of Evil in Science Fiction's Most Idiosyncratic Franchise, now available from Cascade Books. She lives in Chicago with her husband, their dog, and about three dozen houseplants.
In No Bears (2022), Jafar Panahi examines the boundaries that delineate his existence as an artist and as a citizen, flirting with the idea of escape, then drawing back, reluctant to leave the country he loves and doesn’t fully understand, a place at once both home and hostile.
There’s something special about taking part in a treasure hunt at the heart of a hidden gem of a festival. True/False Film Festival feels special because it’s so intimate, populated by cinephiles who love the underestimated and misunderstood genre of documentary features.
Mad God is a stop-motion nightmare, a film that reads like a Boschian painting, a voyeur’s dream, and a dire warning all at once.
On Kogonada’s After Yang and its depiction of grief, love, belonging, and the lovely, wounding ache of memory.
Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark bites into the myth of American individualism and exceptionalism in Western movies by throwing vampires into the mix.
It’s no secret that Drew Goddard is interested in stories about characters watching and being watched by other people. Bad Times at the El Royale takes this fascination and folds it into the very walls of the titular hotel.
Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise is decadence splashed on celluloid, a celebration of the shine of glam rock, and a preemptive funeral for the scene officiated by the dark underside of the business.
Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is a self-fulfilling prophecy that undoes itself in the telling, an ouroboros regurgitating its own tail rather than eating it.
Frankenstein rests in the meeting place where the borders between transgression and transcendence touch.
Stop Making Sense is a beautiful magic trick: show the stage for the hard concrete reality it is, then transform it into an island of motion and movement that’s unreal and exaggerated.
The Empire Strikes Back is about doing the work after all passion for that work is gone, about the slow, hard attempts to see a long-term plan through with no hope of success in sight.
