From the editor — By Brad Nguyen
Special Article
The best films of 2012 — By Screen Machine contributors
Essays
Taking in Mike — By Huw Walmsley-Evans
Is The Hobbit even a film anymore? — By Robbie Fordyce
Reviews
Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi” — By Brad Nguyen
Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty” — By Elliott Logan
“Inside Nature’s Giants” — By Melanie Ashe
Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” — By Andrew Gilbert
Aaron Sorkin’s “The Newsroom” — By Whitney Monaghan
2 months ago -
6
SCREEN MACHINE’S BEST FILMS OF 2012
11. The Extravagant Shadows
12. Barbara
13. Zero Dark Thirty
14. Headshot
15. Wuthering Heights
16. Back to Stay
17. Dark Horse
18. Himizu
19. Neighbouring Sounds
20. Marfa Girl
The whole list is available here.
SCREEN MACHINE’S 20 BEST FILMS OF 2012
- Holy Motors
- Moonrise Kingdom
- In Another Country
- The Master
- Tabu
- I Wish
- The Queen of Versailles
- Cosmopolis
- Prometheus
- No
The whole list is available here.
“The question is: What is the function of the horror element in relation to this element of ordinariness? In Buffy, the horror functions fairly conventionally: the ghoul is a metaphor for something that threatens to upset the ordinary course of things (the overbearing mother who lives vicariously through her daughter, the teacher who seduces students, Internet predators, school bullying). It is Buffy’s function to “slay” these threats to ordinary life and return Sunnydale to a state of equilibrium. In Twilight, the horror functions differently. Though Edward warns Bella that his vampire-passion might cause him to destroy her, she nevertheless pursues him. When she becomes pregnant to a half-vampire baby that threatens to crush her body from within, she stubbornly refuses an abortion despite the protests of her family. The horror is not an external threat to Bella’s existence; it is an inherent part of her romantic utopia … Love in practice and as it is to be defended is always marked by a minimum level of risk, the danger of losing one’s self. To the extent that the penultimate film in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn – Part 1, is alive to this dark underside to love, it must be defended as a bold piece of popular art.”
— Brad Nguyen, “LOVE IN ALL ITS HORROR,” Screen Machine 3.
Read the whole essay here.
“This scene is totally narratively isolated from all the other scenes in the film, pays homage to concerns that are entirely external to the film, and engages in direct criticism of a number of cultural objects: star persona, pop music, masculine heterosexual objectification of women, and the drug-addled veterans of US military engagement … Yes, the narrative is bad, but it doesn’t matter. Kelly cuts to the core of character actors and generic styles in order to expose their radical potential for experimentation, and Southland Tales should be appreciated for this reason.”
— Robbie Fordyce, “TEXTUAL PROMISCUITY IS NOT A CRIME,” Screen Machine 3
Read the whole essay here.
