images in the film Badlands by Terrence Malick are often disharmonious, wherein the potential importance of an encountered object evades the thinking, activity, and perception of the characters. It is as if Malick desires for every object in the sce Continue Reading...
Badlands Formalism Meets Realism in Haunting, Childlike Badlands Terrence Malick's 1973 film Badlands blends formalism and realism to produce a genre film (crime, American, gothic, romance) that is at once self-aware, genre-adherent, genre-breaking Continue Reading...
Clarence and Alabama are capable of finding some sense of mirrored self in the eyes and common quest provided by relationship with another, and it is worth remembering that identity is serious business in "True Romance," serious enough to kill over, Continue Reading...
True Romance in Real Life True Romance is awash in fantasy. From the protagonists' attraction to comics to the hero's delusions of an Elvis (the patron saint of pop culture) who guides him on his fantastic journey to the sexually-charged, hooker wi Continue Reading...
Miller's Crossing gives the best example of the "ethics" of the crime film genre -- beginning as it does with the classic speech delivered by Giovanni Gasparo: "I'm talkin' about friendship -- I'm talkin' about character -- I'm talkin' about -- hel Continue Reading...
