New Bio Explores What Fueled Joan Crawford’s ‘Ferocious Ambition’
Was Joan Crawford self-made or industry-made? Biographer Robert Dance explores what fueled the Hollywood star in Ferocious Ambition.
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We All Must Reckon with the ‘MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios’
Corporate villainy! Creative tyranny! Dangerous foes and tough allies! MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios blasts the superhero movie universe with the studio’s massive, messy history.
Will Hollywood Finally Recognize the East Asian Male?
When Hollywood franchises need East Asian male characters for diversity purposes, their roles are limited to sidekicks or unlikeable men.
Top 10 Forgotten TV Sitcoms You Wish You Had Seen
You’ve heard about them, seen snippets from them, and wondered about them: The Top 10 Forgotten TV Sitcoms You Wish You Had Seen.
Please, No More Hollywood Movies About Hollywood Movies
What is this growing trend of Hollywood movies being made about Hollywood movies? Is it narcissism? Lack of imagination?
The 95th Academy Awards: Is Hollywood Still Only Flirting with Change?
The 95th Academy Awards laid bare a political contradiction, and an attempt to fix a lack of previous recognition for Jamie Lee Curtis was controversial. But is Hollywood still just flirting with the change it needs to make?
Erotic Thriller ‘Poison Ivy’ Isn’t the Lolita Story You Think You Remember
Katt Shea’s subversive 1992 erotic thriller Poison Ivy, like its teenage villainess, is misunderstood, and American media remains obsessed with devious girls.
Sundance 2022: ‘Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power’ Indicts Hollywood’s Male Gaze
In Brainwashed, Nina Menkes intersperses film clips and candid interviews to open our eyes to the myopic viewpoint present in our most cherished Hollywood films.
Quick and Dirty Tales of Murder and Journalism in Hollywood
Flicker Alley’s set of Hollywood B-films from 1934 provide sociological snapshots of the limits of respectable cinema.
Memoir and Criticism in Matthew Specktor’s ‘Always Crashing the Same Car’
As a critic of both films and literature, Matthew Specktor has a balanced touch that keeps the scales even in his memoir, Always Crashing in the Same Car.
Classism Rolls Through Classic Film ‘A Place in the Sun’ Like a Noirish Fog
A lyrical ode to Hollywood beauties Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor, the An American Tragedy-inspired A Place in the Sun casts a long noirish shadow.
Ronald Brownstein Celebrates and Elegizes LA’s ’70s-Era Cultural Dominance
Ronald Brownstein’s ode to ’70s Los Angeles is, like so many California stories, less about a sustained moment than a bright and briefly thrilling mirage.