Culturopolis

We’re so enamored with the love story, with its promise of happy endings and the sunny side of life, that watching a film about the dissolution of a marriage triggers deep feelings of loss and sadness. Blue Valentine is a difficult, heartbreaking film, but it’s also essential viewing if only for offering a corrective to all of the tales of blissful, uncomplicate...

Felicia Feaster was born in Jimmy Stewart's hometown of Indiana, Pennsylvania.  She received her B.A. in film studies from the University of Florida and her M.A. in film studies from Emory University.  Her master's thesis on exploitation film became a book, Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Film co-authored with fellow lowbrow connoisseur, husband and filmmaker Bret Wood ( Hell's Highway , Psychopathia Sexualis ) and a Kino Lorber DVD series .  A former staff art and film critic for Atlanta’s alternative newsweekly Creative Loafing, Felicia is currently a managing editor at HGTV.com and TravelChannel.com and the art critic for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution .  Her writing has appeared in Elle , The Economist , New York Press , Atlanta magazine, Sculpture , Art in America , Travel + Leisure , Artnews , Playboy online and Art Papers .  She has curated exhibitions for the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and TEW Galleries in Atlanta. She has ...

Natalie Portman loses her mind in the exquisitely gothic Black Swan Just Dance by Felicia Feaster Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures Nina (Natalie Portman) has got a real nasty case of pink eye Black Swan Starring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder, and Vincent Cassel Directed by Darren Aronofsky Rated R ...

The Company Men is relevant but heavy handed at times In Good Company by Felicia Feaster Courtesy of Odyssey Entertainment These guys really wish they hadn't spent all their money on suits The Company Men Starring Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper, Tommy Lee Jones, Rosemarie DeWitt, Kevin Costner, Craig T. Nelson, and Maria Bello Directed by John Wells Rated R ...

Women suffer through interminable summer movies centered on the kind of comic book heroes that delighted little boys. Now recast as “thoughtful,” “complex” Incredible Iron Bat Guy Men because they suffer and struggle. They are now soulful. And dark. We have to listen to all of the critical excavation of depth and subtext in the big summer bang-bang, kapow, muscle-bound multiplex product. And one summer, a movie comes along that women like. It’s called Sex and the City . Women eat it up, partly because it treats female friendship and relationships and infidelity and marriage with the earnestness they deserve. But also because like a drink of water offered to a dying desert traveler, it is blessed, sweet relief. But are women allowed to enjoy the escapist pleasure of a summer movie? Hell no. We get writers who use film criticism as a venue for their erotic fascination telling us Sex and the City is shallow and insipid. These women are too old. Superficial. Too into shoes. And closets...

(Photo courtesy: Magnolia Pictures) Almost everyone must at some point harbors a secret desire to drop off the grid: to leave behind the racket of health insurance and home payments and just, be , in that hackneyed Sixties sense. Surfwise , the documentary about Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz, a Stanford-educated M.D. who dropped out of the rat race to raise his nine kids in a 24-foot camper, is both a cautionary tale and advertisement for living free. I have a deep affection for lovable iconoclasts and for surfing movies, so teamed up, this film is pure narcotic.

How not to feel like Queen Sourpuss when your 7-year-old sits guffawing beside you and the rest of the movie theater audience sounds ready to bust a gut and all you can do is squirm for some release? The Get Smart movie had some amusing moments, but not the kind of full-throttle hilarity I'd leave my house for. I find comedy the consistently most disappointing and alienating of film genres. Everyone else is making like Hands Across America over Superbad and Borat , and there I am with my arms folded feeling like the sad-eyed goth in a Tim Burton film. I recently met an Atlanta artist who told me he enjoyed my art reviews, but thought my movie reviews took all the fun out of film. He's apparently not the only one, as this golden oldie proves. I still smile every time I read it.