Dennis Harvey
Screen Grabs: Lysergicize the whimsical
For obvious reasons, some stylistic aspects of 1960s counterculture were slower to infiltrate Soviet bloc nations than general populations in the West. Even as late as 1976, the protagonist...
Screen Grabs: No name on the bullet
Last weekend saw the 75th anniversary of V-J Day, when Emperor Hirohito’s official surrender signaled the de facto end of World War II. You might think this milestone would...
Screen Grabs: Cheap thrills, serial killers, and miscellaneous mayhem
For most, this summer may be low on vacation travel by necessity. That leaves even more room for humbler kinds of escapism, from “beach read” books to similarly pulpy...
Screen Grabs: Fighting disability stereotypes, from Frankenstein to Rain Man
The #MeToo era has brought heightened attention to a lot of mis- and under-representation issues in entertainment media, not all of them related to misogyny or racial discrimination. Close...
Screen Grabs: Every day they write the book
Writing and writers seem to be the dominant theme in this weekend’s new releases—something that is seldom a particularly exciting subject for movies, admittedly. But between a high-profile literary...
Screen Grabs: You say you wanted a ‘Revolution’
At this point even six months ago may feel like an entirely different, long-lost epoch—as, meanwhile, November 3 can’t possibly come soon enough. But if you really want to take the...
Screen Grabs: Sentiment averse
Normally I wouldn’t bother explaining why a certain movie is not being covered in this column, but this weekend there’s a particular glut of ‘em, all of whose absence from greater...
Screen Grabs: Art imitates life
Social media political propaganda campaigns, sexual abuse accusations, invaded privacy—art certainly seems to be imitating life even more than usual amongst new streaming releases at present, and that’s just...
Screen Grabs: The shift evident, women directors rise
While the stampede of sexual harassment and assault accusations unleashed by the #MeToo movement may make it seem the entertainment industry is a sexist cesspool beyond redemption, in fact...
Screen Grabs: Films that pull back the veil
The Trump regime’s egregious wrongdoing and pollutive effect on society has wound up bringing greater attention to long-term (yet rapidly worsening) woes of American life like police violence, income...
