Lauren Humphries-Brooks is a writer, editor, and media journalist. She holds a Master’s degree in Cinema Studies from New York University, and in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh. She regularly contributes to film and pop culture websites, and has written extensively on Classical Hollywood, British horror films, and the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror genres. She currently works as a freelance copyeditor and proofreader.
Late Night opens with praise lavished on Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson) as a pioneering late-night talk show host who has transformed the television landscape. Within the first fifteen minutes of the film, however, Katherine is facing cancellation, as her ratings drop and she clashes with her latest boss, […]
Premature is a slice-of-life film about one summer in the life of Ayanna (Zora Howard), a Harlem teenager getting ready go to college the following year. She spends her time hanging out with her friends, fighting with her mother, and writing poetry she allows no one else to […]
Dorothy Arzner was one of the most prolific female filmmakers of the Golden Age of Hollywood—and the only female feature director employed by the studios—yet somehow her influence has been reduced to a footnote, usually to Dance, Girl, Dance. Many of Arzner’s films are unavailable or available only […]
The need for diversity in filmmaking has (slowly) begun to be reflected in wider releases, as studios and producers come to understand that maybe there’s more to this world than a bunch of upper-middle-class white people. But indie film has always seen a greater scope of cinematic storytelling […]
This past week included the celebration of Dracula Day, a day dedicated to the King of Vampires and his many permutations. But we often forget about the other vampires, the vampires that were on the scene before old Drac arrived to twirl his mustache, seduce young ladies, and […]
There’s not a single bad film in the Criterion Channel’s Columbia Noir collection, but there are more than a few that I was surprised I hadn’t heard of. Like: My Name is Julia Ross, a gothic narrative that makes use of all the tropes even as it subtly undercuts […]
When discussing mainstream noir directors, we tend to forget about Frank Borzage, who absorbed the style and substance of German Expressionist filmmakers and imported them to the US in his noirs. His 1948 film Moonrise is a unique noir in style and subject, evading a total condemnation of […]
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