The Academic Hack

Nothing but Top Ten Lists (in progress - 1963-72; 1974-2006; ADDED: 1963 list; Delicacies of Molten Horror Synapse [1991]; Maxwell's Demon [1968]; 2006 corrected)

Notes on Older Films

II. Lines of Light (a-g film)

-You've probably been hearing a lot about Michael Robinson lately, and with good reason (for Cinema Scope)

-1, 2, 3, 4, tell me that you love Views from the Avant-Garde more.

-I was perplexed and even frightened by two recent digital works by Phil Solomon (reprinted from Cinema Scope)

-John Gianvito honors the comrades who came before us (for Cinema Scope)

-nobody converts lenten light or dilates time quite like Lynn Marie Kirby (reprinted from Cinema Scope)

-two dispatches from Views 06, one on the oldies and one on the newies

-You don't know Jack? Mary Jordan thinks you should.

-short pieces on Baillie's Castro Street and Gehr's Side / Walk / Shuttle for the Girish Avant-Garde Blog-a-Thon

-I interview Scott MacDonald about the Critical Cinema series (for Cinema Scope)

-excerpt from a still-under-revision, rife-with-error analysis of Ernie Gehr's Signal: Germany on the Air

-a few chunks of a ponderous wall of text attempting to grapple with Ken Jacobs's Bitemporal Vision: The Sea

-excerpts from a discussion about Scott Stark's NOEMA (published in the anthology Porn Studies)

-an open letter of apology to Caveh Zahedi for a bad decision while serving on the SFIFF jury

-an unpublished (and unpublishable) review of Catherine Russell's book Experimental Ethnography

-the latest revision of my paper on Snow's Wavelength, Heidegger and Lefebvre (published in Qui Parle)

-an apologetic email sent to my students, summarizing a lecture on Baldwin's Tribulation 99 and Kubelka's Unsere Afrikareise

-a rather psychoanalytically burdened consideration of some expanded-cinema work by Valie Export (published, remarkably, in Discourse)

- "The Fixed Frame" (latest revision and expansion -- warning, deadly dull)

III. The Funky Diegesis (narrative film)

-Alexandra . . . Why? Sokurov tries to puzzle out the Chechen War, with mixed results (for Cinema Scope)

-a rather convoluted attempt at an introduction to the films of Abderrahmane Sissako (for Cinema Scope)

-I talk some about Ousmane Sembène (for The Nashville Scene)

-Spike Lee knows what it means to miss New Orleans (for Cineaste)

-I was hating Crash when hating Crash wasn't cool (for Cineaste)

-a review of the mock-doc book F is for Phony (for Cineaste)

-Hong Sang-soo's postmodern gamesmanship hits new levels of existential horror in Tale of Cinema (for Cinema Scope)

-sinking my teeth into Land of the Dead (for Cinema Scope)

-wildly enthusing over Kung Fu Hustle with some cross-referencing jujitsu (for The Nashville Scene)

-TIFF wrap-up 2006!!! (for GreenCine Daily)

-"How Alain Resnais Beat the Numbers Game" (tedious excursus on the hazards of the 1-10 scale and Not on the Lips)

-a Deleuzian reading of Bruno Dumont's L'humanité with some odd digressions

-an abortive stab at Valie Export's The Practice of Love, read aloud in Carlisle, PA

-bold, rather shaky claims for radical bisexuality in Chuck & Buck

-an interview with the directors of the documentary Derrida

-a sample from a long-ass discussion of temporal frameworks in The Shining

IV. A Hundred Flowers in Bloom (web links)

V. Viewer Mail (contact me here)

NOTE: I am the sole copyright holder of all written materials published on this site. Materials previously published elsewhere which are reprinted, partially or in full, on this site are under copyright through agreement between myself and the original publishers. In other words, don't plagiarize me. I am not a big proponent of "intellectual property" and I am actually in favor of a certain amount of theft. But if you are going to steal: (a) steal from better than me; and (b) steal creatively. Also, despite my institutional affiliations, I am the sole party responsible for material posted on this website. Also, note to family members -- sorry about all the swearing.