Ghost Book

Jan 22, 2007 — Forget the Beatles vs. Elvis: for me the world is divided into Karloff people and Lugosi people, and I’m in the Karloff clique. Bela Lugosi’s oversize mannerisms and thickly accented drawl have always seemed camp to me, while Boris Karloff’s...

Jan 15, 2007 — Allison Anders, Dean Lent and Kurt Voss’s influential indie paints a compelling picture of the Los Angeles punk-rock scene of the 1980s: what it was like on the inside—and what it was like inside the musicians’ heads.

Feb 21, 2006 — Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) is an Ealing comedy in name only. True, it’s undeniably a comedy and was made by (though largely not at) Ealing. But in virtually every other respect, it deviates startlingly from the commonly accepted stereotype....

Dec 9, 2002 — What makes Jean-Luc Godard’s classic so unique a viewing experience today, even more than in 1963, is the way it stimulates an audience’s intelligence as well as its senses.

Sep 1, 2016 — Actor, writer, and director Illeana Douglas is the granddaughter of two-time Academy Award–winning actor Melvyn Douglas. She has starred in Cape Fear (1991), To Die For (1995), Grace of My Heart (1996), Picture Perfect (1997), and Ghost World (2001). In...

Lisa Morton is a screenwriter and author whose books include The Cinema of Tsui Hark (2001), Savage Detours: The Life and Work of Ann Savage (2010), and The Art of the Zombie Movie (2023). Her film writing includes articles about...

May 29, 2026 — We’re revisiting work by Tarkovsky, Pelechian, and Portabella as well as two films with the word Dead in the title.

Feb 24, 2026 — For this existential noir, Joel and Ethan Coen drew inspiration from crime-fiction master James M. Cain’s lean, hard-boiled style and interest in the quotidian world of work.

Jul 3, 2025 — The week wraps with Peter Wollen on Performance, a top ten from Radu Jude, and a conversation with Dag Johan Haugerud.

Aug 13, 2024 — This month brings riveting courtroom dramas, New American Cinema classics, giallo shockers, pre-Code gems by women screenwriters, and a new episode of Adventures in Moviegoing.