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American Civil War prisoners escape in a balloon only to find themselves stranded on an island populated by fantastic monsters in 1961's Mysterious Island, based on the Jules Verne novel. Among lively and lusty adventure films of the '50s and early '60s, this one has a strangely gloomy, sepulchral tone I really liked ( Read more... )

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For a sheltered young woman, meeting a handsome, supernatural boy can be the beginning of a passionate adventure, lasting beyond a lifetime. For others, like the heroine of 2002's Tuck Everlasting, such an encounter may be a chaste and pleasant diversion for a few weeks, or even months, but, well, there's never any reason to become too terribly ( Read more... )

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One of the things I love about The King of Elfland's Daughter is that, for most of the book, none of the characters have any agency. It's not that I'm against characters having agency, but lazy critics so often tend to reach for it as a point of criticism nowadays that it's kind of glorious to read a novel in which all characters, mortal and faerie ( Read more... )

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Criterion has a David Lynch playlist currently streaming so last night I watched Mulholland Drive again. Not for the first time, I found myself comparing and contrasting the Club Silencio scene with Jean-Luc Godard. I suspect a lot of people who watch Mulholland Drive take the Club Silencio scene as a commentary on movies and art in general. I'd ( Read more... )

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