Nick's Flick Picks: The Blog
A film blog under the influence
Labels: 2009, Favorites, Juliette Lewis, Movies 2000-04
posted by NicksFlickPicks at 12:00 PM
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MY PROFILE THE LATEST THE BEST THE FAVORITES THE WOMEN THE REST |
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The Desiring-Image: Gilles Deleuze and Contemporary Queer Cinema ($30/pbk). By Nick Davis. Oxford University Press, 2013.
The book that earned me tenure at Northwestern. Offers a new theoretical model of queer film, born from Gilles Deleuze's rarely-integrated notions of cinema and desire. Chapter-length readings of
Dead Ringers,
Naked Lunch, Shortbus, The Watermelon Woman, Brother to Brother, Beau travail, and
Velvet Goldmine, plus other films along the way! Written for a scholarly audience but hopefully interesting to anyone curious about recent cinema, ideas about desire, or LGBT aesthetics and politics. "Important and needed work...Deeply original." —D.N. Rodowick, "Seductive in its intellect and humbling in its prose." —Michele Aaron
Reading the Bromance: Homosocial Relationships in Film and Television ($32/pbk). Ed. Michael DeAngelis. Wayne State University Press, 2014.
Academic pieces that dig into recent portraits in popular media, comic and dramatic, of intimacies between straight(ish) men. Includes the essay
"'I Love You, Hombre': Y tu mamá también as Border-Crossing Bromance" by Nick Davis, as well as chapters on Superbad, Humpday, Jackass, The Wire, and other texts. Written for a mixed audience of scholars, students, and non-campus readers. Forthcoming in June 2014. "Remarkably sophisticated essays." —Janet Staiger, "Essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary models of gender and sexuality." —Harry Benshoff
Fifty Key American Films ($31/pbk). Ed. Sabine Haenni, John White. Routledge, 2009. Includes my essays on
The Wild Party,
The Incredibles, and
Brokeback Mountain. Intended as both a newcomer's guide to the terrain
and a series of short, exploratory essays about such influential works as The Birth of a Nation, His Girl Friday, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song,
Taxi Driver, Blade Runner, Daughters of the Dust, and Se7en.
The Cinema of Todd Haynes: All That Heaven
Allows ($25/pbk). Ed. James Morrison. Wallflower Press, via Columbia University Press, 2007. Includes the essay
"'The Invention of a People': Velvet Goldmine and the Unburying of Queer Desire" by Nick Davis, later expanded and revised in The Desiring-Image.
More, too, on Poison, Safe, Far From Heaven, and Haynes's other films by Alexandra Juhasz, Marcia Landy,
Todd McGowan, James Morrison, Anat Pick, and other scholars. "A collection as intellectually and emotionally
generous as Haynes' films" —Patricia White, Swarthmore College
Film Studies:
The Basics ($23/pbk). By Amy Villarejo. Routledge, 2006, 2013. Award-winning
film scholar and teacher Amy Villarejo finally gives us the quick, smart, reader-friendly guide to film vocabulary that every
teacher, student, and movie enthusiast has been waiting for, as well as a one-stop primer in the past, present, and future of film production, exhibition,
circulation, and theory. Great glossary, wide-ranging examples, and utterly unpretentious prose that remains rigorous in its analysis;
the book commits itself at every turn to the artistry, politics, and accessibility of cinema.
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Chicagoans! This site doesn't even accept advertising, but I'm making an unsolicited exception for the best, freshest, most affordable meal you can enjoy in the Loop, at any time of the day, whether you're on the go or eager to sit. Cuban and Latin American sandwiches, coffees, pastries, salads, shakes, and other treats. Hand-picked, natural, and slow-cooked ingredients. My friendly neighborhood place, a jewel in my life even before the Reader and Time Out figured it out. Visit!
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Watch this space! Chicago has a new, exciting, important, and totally accessible cadre of queer film critics who are joining forces to bring screenings, special events, and good, queer-focused movie chats to our fair city. Read our mission! Stay tuned for events! Cruise the website, and help get this great new group off the ground by enrolling as a friend (it's free!) and by asking how you can help.
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since 5.27.05 |
11 Comments:
I'll assume that the first "this" isn't meant to link to "The Invention of Lying." Unless Drew has been even busier than I thought this year!
Anyway, I love it when good old-fashioned word of mouth amps up the must-see status of a film of which I previously had no expectations whatsoever.
Woah. This film even made you gush like an 80's power ballad. It must be special!
@Guy: Big, bad Oops, but I'm glad you still followed.
@Cal: Surely you know I wasn't thinking of the Foreigner version.
Surely you know the song has had its day :-P
Phew! I really dug it, and was starting to feel very alone.
Now I really want to see this. I hope MGH has a substantial role.
re your Bring it On review...as a black person I always felt the ending was a cop out.
@Bill: Glad to hear we're in the same camp.
@AEE: Marcia Gay does great stuff with the role she's got. Admirable peekaboo with the cliché aspects of the role. (As for the ending of Bring It On: what kind of cop-out? You think the championship should have gone the other way? Or you think the eventual entente between the teams never would/should have happened?)
Yay. i'm so glad you loved it. I have to say while i was thinking about it afterwards I knew you would respond to one thing in particular: this film has no easy judgments on its characters. It's totally filled with humanity, Drew doesn't really think of anyone as a caricature even though they're definitely Characters if you know what i mean...
@Nathaniel: And when I was thinking about your reaction, I was imagining that you probably loved how hilariously Drew keeps obscuring or downplaying her own appearances, way above and beyond her generosity to showcase the other actors so well. That first line of dialogue she has, when Kristen Wiig is telling Ellen Page that the next tryout is on Tuesday, or whatever, and Drew is hazily mumbling, "It is?" at the edge of the frame, was hilarious... as it was when she rolls in late to the big group huddle, as the camera pans around to the rest of the Hurl Scouts. Hysterically self-effacing, sort of: she certainly gets plenty of slapstick laughs out of seeming to be a backgrounded character.
A little bit of both. How satirically awesome would it be if they both lost? Change of perspective it would have. And I always figured it would seem too 'racist' to have the white Toros win. But I'm nitpicking. It's a fun wild romp. Hope Whip It is as good. But MGH. I'm already sold.
I enjoyed Whip It!, but I think comparing it to Bring It On, the greatest sports movie ever, is a bit much. The cast was great and Drew Barrymore is most likely going to be a director to watch in the future, but the script was a complete letdown. The subplot with the (ugly) boyfriend added nothing to the film and the dramatic portion where Ellen Page has to apologize to everyone she's ever made contact with simply went on too long. I would have loved for more interaction between the girls, more time for Ari Graynor (seriously, why bother casting someone that hilarious and not even give her a funny line?) and more Kristen Wiig jokes as deliriously silly as the "crabs" one.
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