The Sublime Minimalism of Finding Bigfoot
In Jim Jarmusch’s 1984 film Stranger Than Paradise, Willie and Eddie decide to leave NYC and take a trip to Cleveland to visit Willie’s immigrant cousin, Eva. They’re [...]
Articles by Oliver O'Sullivan
Previously on…, Next time on…
Last fall, Too Many Cooks rightfully ruled the world. Part of the brilliance of the short was how thoroughly it broke the rigid structure of the television program. It [...]
True Detective: Reverse-Twin Peaks and Faulty Omniscience
There is no reality in art. All perspectives are mediated. Everything is uncanny—at once familiar and strange. David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks tipped this fragile [...]
The Dissolve Dissolves—In Memoriam
Is being heartbroken over the shuttering of an online film publication overly dramatic? This is the 21st century, after all; our lives are tied inextricably to the digital [...]
Gone Girl: Cats, Iguanas, & Alligators
People act differently when under the fixed scrutiny of a camera; other animals don’t. That’s the trick and the artistry of acting—to shed or channel the [...]
The Terminator and the Cinema
In the last ten minutes or so of The Terminator, the eponymous antagonist—a time-traveling cyborg—sheds the Austrian bodybuilder suit it’s been wearing all along, and [...]
Real-to-Reel: Only Lovers Left Alive
In 2001, avant-garde composer William Basinski attempted to transfer his archive of tapes to digital. In the process of spooling through these long-shelved ambient loops, [...]
On the Importance of Refrigerators in Film
Refrigerators occupy a special, if strange, and surprisingly versatile, place in film. They have been killing machines, nuclear bunkers, and portals to alternate, [...]
Spared No Expense: From Jurassic Park to Jurassic World
Jurassic Park thrived on juxtaposition, cramming contradictions together and marveling at the inevitable mayhem. Incompatible eras, species, and ecosystems inhabited the same [...]
Birdman and the Embattled Long Take
Andy Warhol once said, “I’m afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning.” He explored this in extremis in films such as Blow Job, Sleep, [...]
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