Email Author Alan Scherstuhl

2012 Stories by Alan Scherstuhl

• Meet the Un-Exonerated in West of Memphis

  published December 19, 2012

  The murder of the children should be the most disturbing thing. The crime-scene photos of three young boys killed in 1993 in West Memphis,... More >>

• Like Marriage, This Is 40 Is Long, Aimless, and Worth It

  published December 19, 2012

  Sadly, country songwriters stand as nearly the only entertainers in our popular culture who craft memorable art on the subject of marriage, the... More >>

• Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away

  published December 19, 2012

  The ravishing and kitschy Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away is the rare movie whose title serves as an accurate indicator of whether you... More >>

• Golden Boys? Stand Up Guys Is a Blow to Al Pacino's Legacy

  published December 12, 2012

  Please, for his own good, somebody clap Dustin Hoffman into a chastity belt. Based on what Al Pacino suffers in Stand Up Guys, and the... More >>

• Tricky, Gorgeous Tchoupitoulas Is a Grand Travelogue

  published December 5, 2012

  While they almost certainly have plans for striking new projects that expand our understanding of what documentaries can be, Bill and Turner... More >>

• In Hyde Park on Hudson, It's Patriotic to Pleasure a President

  published December 5, 2012

  It's dispiriting that a film about the romantic life of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who cultivated a small coterie of mistresses, should exhibit so... More >>

• Wagner & Me

  published December 5, 2012

  The "Me" here is likable ol' Stephen Fry, who in this sprightly doc considers one of the tougher questions of morality and aesthetics: What... More >>

• Reading Around: Annemarie Schwarzenbach's Impossible Journeys

  published December 5, 2012

  It's not an insult to the work of Annemarie Schwarzenbach that many readers, in the decades since her death in 1942, have found her writing not... More >>

• Addicted to Fame Squeezes One Last Buck From Anna Nicole

  published November 28, 2012

  Deep into Blonde, Joyce Carol Oates's bouillon-dense fever dream of a novel, Marilyn Monroe at last manages to make it to the set of... More >>

• Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

  published November 28, 2012

  Dir. Frank Tashlin (1957). This dishy ad-biz satire is surprisingly timely. Soaked in sex and an almost un-American disdain for PR and its lies... More >>

• Radiance Heads to the Bar

  published November 21, 2012

  After a first third as a small, traditional play about small, unkempt lives, Labyrinth Theater's Radiance spills into a trapdoor of a... More >>

• Attack!

  published November 21, 2012

  Dir. Robert Aldrich (1956). Charles Silver's Auterist History of Film series is just the thing for anyone needing to convince lovers or relatives... More >>

• Black Christmas

  published November 21, 2012

  Dir. Bob Clark (1974). This bloody yule log is often cited candidate as one of first-ever slasher films; it's less often celebrated as one of the... More >>

• Lincoln: Good Spielberg's Bad Moments

  published November 14, 2012

  The first few minutes of Lincoln play out like a parody of the expectations of Steven Spielberg's detractors. The Great Emancipator... More >>

• Miami Connection Is the Kung Fu '80s Electro-funk Flick of Your Dreams

  published November 7, 2012

  Can we as a culture at last retire the idea that a movie can be so "bad" that it's good? I ask this still pleasurably punch-drunk by Miami... More >>

• Reading Around: Absurd Science Fiction in Translation and the Ongoing Triumph of Bach

  published November 7, 2012

  A laugh-out-loud apocalypse, a daft two-against-the-world love story, and a slashing yet humane science-fiction satire of our faith in... More >>

• The Details

  published October 31, 2012

  Another dark comedy exposing the wormy dirt beneath suburban sod, The Details never lays bare any truths we haven't known since, say,... More >>

• Suspiria

  published October 31, 2012

  Dir. Dario Argento (1977). “See it Big,” the MOMI series instructs, but just as exciting is the chance to catch Dario Argento's mad... More >>

• Girl Shy

  published October 31, 2012

  Dir. Harold Lloyd (1924). Remembered today for one meaning-pregnant stunt on a clockface, a sequence that could be read as concerning the... More >>

• Quadrophenia

  published October 31, 2012

  Dir. Franc Roddam (1979). BAM's celebration of everyone's third-favorite classic-rock band peaks the rare rock movie that works as drama. A... More >>

• Dinotasia

  published October 24, 2012

  In days long past, watching the double-feature or late-night UHF, kids had to find it within themselves to wait and wait for a glimpse of the... More >>

• Michael Jackson's (and Spike Lee's) BAD25 Proves Your Butt Is Still His

  published October 17, 2012

  Look, if there's any part of you that thinks you might be interested in catching BAD 25, Spike Lee's two-hour... More >>

• Gasland

  published October 17, 2012

  Dir. Josh Fox (2010). You know what would be more effective than liking anti-fracking posts on Facebook? Hauling your real-life friends to the IFC... More >>

• Elvira: Mistress of the Dark

  published October 17, 2012

  Dir. James Signorelli (1988). The great shame is that there's no longer syndicated or local TV hosts to introduce this curio and bookend... More >>

• Better Than Something

  published October 17, 2012

  Dir. Alex Hammond and Ian Markiewicz (2011). A three-chord vérité blurt that's somehow totally rock & roll but also totally autumnal... More >>