Monsters & Mullets: Labyrinth
The journey from unfair to unjust is a twisted maze, one littered with false starts and dead ends; it’s also, significantly, the journey undertaken in Labyrinth, from childhood to adulthood, powerlessness to power.
You Are Sleeping, You Do Not Want to Believe: ‘Dreamscape’ (1984)
You may have seen that rad poster Drew Struzan created for Joseph Ruben’s 1984 movie, Dreamscape. It’s the one with a smirking Dennis Quaid holding a torch while creepy heads float on the sides, implying an over-the-top, Indiana Jones-like escapade. That doesn’t strike an accurate tone, and it’s not the whole story.
Disavowing the Story: On Kimi wa Koibito (You Are My Lover): Part Two
Guest Star and film scholar Earl Jackson continues his look at Kimi wa Koibito / You Are My Lover, a dizzyingly metafictional and genre-bending Nikkatsu film featuring an injured Japanese teen hearthrob’s return to the screen in a movie that references his injury and the incident that caused […]
Appearing as Oneself: On Kimi wa Koibito / You are My Lover (1967): Part I
This week Guest Star and film scholar Earl Jackson writes about an injured Japanese teen hearthrob’s return to the screen in a movie that references his injury and the incident that caused it. ~~~ Rushing headlong into the kaleidoscopic tumult of world film history, kibbitzing at a bazaar […]
Bugs Don’t Need No Radiation
Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn.Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.Lady and the Tramp. They were all legendary couples of the Silver Screen in the 1950s, but the greatest cinematic pairing of the decade was Insects and Radiation, two great tastes that mutate together. If the movies were to be […]
Dancing With the Devil: The Culturally Rich Tapestry of Sinners
This week’s Guest Star is Michelle Kisner. Keep up with her on Instagram at @robotcookie! ~~~ In the first act of Sinners (2025), a blues singer named Delta Slim (played by Delroy Lindo) recounts a story from his past while being driven through an expansive field of cotton, […]
The Cultural Gutter 