film | The Smart Set

Our Oscars, Ourselves

Alex Dabertin — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 12:30:00 +0000

In our second Oscars story republished from 2016, writer Alex Dabertin examines the red-carpet race for Best Actress. The cultural landscape was marked by a significant emphasis on issues of gender equality, diversity, and representation in Hollywood. 2015 brought the #MeToo movement and infused discussions surrounding the Oscars with a heightened sensitivity to issues of […]

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Central Asia in Film

Komron Ergashev — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 12:30:00 +0000

To the Ends of the Earth: A Unique Perspective Imagine a world in which the essence of a nation is defined by its portrayal on the silver screen. Now, what if said nation has no portrayal at all to go by? Uzbekistan has long suffered from cinematic anonymity. The vast sand dunes of the Kyzylkum […]

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Print the Legend

Matt Hanson — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 10:57:06 +0000

A few years ago, I had to assemble a syllabus for a writing class. I added John Ford’s 1962 black and white western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. I don’t quite remember why, and I was worried how it would go over. Thankfully the first class discussion went much better than expected and the […]

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A Mink

Paula Marantz Cohen — Mon, 29 Aug 2022 11:30:00 +0000

When we consider the predatory behavior of high-profile individuals like Andrew Cuomo, Charlie Rose, and Matt Lauer, we tend to think that they were driven by lust and egotistical entitlement. We fail to take into account the societal expectations that prevailed a mere 50 or 60 years ago when these men were boys. Within the […]

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Has Hollywood Finally Heard Us?

David Giatras — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 17:13:10 +0000

This past year, I’ve been seeing a lot of myself on the screen. It feels weird to say that. As someone who has been deaf for most of their life, I’m not used to seeing people like me in movies or on television. Before this year, I could name a handful of movies or television […]

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Theses on Sugar Man

Sam Kahn — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 11:30:00 +0000

My girlfriend and I have plenty of things to argue about, but, surprisingly enough, the leading topic of argument — the argument that pretty much all others circle back to — is about the documentary film Searching for Sugar Man. You probably already know at least the outlines of the story. Sixto Rodriguez (the “Sugar […]

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Going Above Ground

Matt Hanson — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 13:12:15 +0000

“We were just anarchists. But we were anarchists with heart.” So says John Cale in the liner notes to the Velvet Underground’s Peel Slowly and See box set, written by Rolling Stone editor David Fricke, which I have read approximately 7,000 times. Thank god for Columbia House (remember them?) and their buy-one-get-one-half-price box set deal, […]

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A Rare Thing in His Age

Sloane Dzhitenov — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 12:30:00 +0000

It just seemed like the thing to — to do at the time. I don’t really know . . . Well, I have — you know, I have been asked the question before, by — by Bill Murray, who said, ‘Why am I doing — why would I do this?’ Um, and I, ah, I […]

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My Scene’s Mise-en-Scene

Michael Riordan — Thu, 27 Jan 2022 12:31:00 +0000

I’m staring out the window. In film studies, it’s called a “look of outward regard.” If I were a character in a movie, the audience will wonder what I’m looking at and what will happen next. I should be setting up for my next class, but I zoom in on the campus grounds below: a […]

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Blow Out

Matt Hanson — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 12:30:00 +0000

While recording ambient night noises on a bridge, a movie sound man suddenly overhears a passing car fall off the edge and go tumbling into the dark water. He bravely manages to rescue the girl trapped inside, but the poor schmuck’s troubles are only beginning. He’s an accidental witness to something he doesn’t understand. The […]

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