Peter Gutierrez
New Jersey

Writer of fiction and nonfiction, with too little of the former and too much of the latter published over the past couple of decades. For more info, please just Google me, adding words such as comics, film, literacy, media, and horror. And thanks for reading my work...

PARIAH Review
I'll admit it, I'm a curmudgeon where coming-of-age films are concerned. Even when they're widely acclaimed, as in Lone Scherfig's An Education, I often find their points too facile, their emphases clouded by an adult perspective that's slyly looking back... More »
  

ALBERT NOBBS Review
Is there anything more disappointing than a restrained period drama that simmers... simmers... and then cools to the point where it reaches room temperature?Actually, I suppose there are many things in the world more disappointing than that -- I'm just... More »
  

Who's On Top?: The Audience's Sexual (Re-)Positioning in Fincher's DRAGON TATTOO
With all the nasty dazzle of David Fincher's impressive new film, it's easy to overlook how it completes star Daniel Craig's evolution into a full-fledged Bond Girl. That's not to cast aspersions on the actor's masculinity, but rather the opposite:... More »
  

A Brief Chat with the One and Only Roger Corman
Chances are that if you love movies you know who Roger Corman is. If you're not sure, however, about all the things that he's accomplished in his nearly sixty-year career, you may want to check out his page at IMDb--but... More »
  

Exploring CORMAN'S WORLD with Documentarian Alex Stapleton
In an awards season awash with nostalgia for the movie culture of yore, it's nice to see a bit of living history up on the screen in the form of Alex Stapleton's Corman's World. No question that Hugo and The... More »
  

THE SWELL SEASON Review
[With the film extending its run in Los Angeles and opening tomorrow in New York, we now revisit Peter's review from Tribeca.] Overall, I must say that I was struck by the similarity of The Swell Season to Hobo with... More »
  

NYFF 2011: A DANGEROUS METHOD Review
During yesterday's press conference at Lincoln Center, director David Cronenberg insisted he doesn't think about his past pictures while engaged in the making of a new one. That doesn't mean that audiences, and more specifically his legions of fans--and I'm... More »
  

NYFF 2011: MISS BALA Review
You've got to hand it to Gerardo Naranjo. Other filmmakers, particularly those of the Hollywood school, would have taken the easy way out when starting from such a winning, inspired-by-a-true-story premise:  a poor, would-be beauty queen becomes, against her will,... More »
  

NYFF 2011: CARNAGE Review
I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say that Roman Polanski's Carnage, which opens in the U.S. on December 16, is in many ways a quintessential New York Film Festival title. Like The Social Network last year,... More »
  

SHUT UP LITTLE MAN! AN AUDIO MISADVENTURE Review
[With Matthew Bate's documentary opening in limited release tomorrow in the U.S. we now revisit Peter Gutierrez's review from this spring.]For one of the most compelling documentaries I've seen on media in a long time (and I take in a... More »
  

Tribeca 2011: THE SWELL SEASON Review
Overall, I must say that I was struck by the similarity of The Swell Season to Hobo with a Shotgun.  Well, wait, hold on a sec and I'll explain:  both films know what their target audiences expect as they... More »
  

POM Wonderful Presents THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER SOLD
Like Michael Moore, Morgan Spurlock has forged a career as a documentarian by putting himself front and center--therefore, as with Moore, the question of whether one likes his work often comes down to whether one likes the man himself.... More »
  

Tribeca 2011: A Chat with BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW's Panos Cosmatos

"Uncompromising" and "eye-opening" might be two of the adjectives that occur to you as you mull over the experience that is Beyond the Black Rainbow. Even more likely is that you'll leave a screening saying to yourself, "Well, that was...... More »
  

Tribeca 2011 Review: THE ASSAULT
Always handsome in its burnished gun-metal and sepia tones, and immediately involving, Julien (Chrysalis) Leclercq's The Assault nonetheless feels like less than the sum of its parts. Based on the true story of a 1994 raid on a hijacked... More »
  

Tribeca 2011 Review: RABIES

The Tribeca programming notes, which contend that Rabies (Kalevet) is "worthy of its mantle as Israel's first-ever horror film," aren't exactly as encouraging as they seem to feel they are. After all, do you really want the film you're seeing... More »
  

SCREAM 4 Review
Let's have a little compassion for Scream 4, shall we? After all, look at all the different audiences it's trying to please: Saturday night multiplex crowds, postmodern hipsters and media-watchers who'll appreciate its arch cultural references, gawkers at celebrities and... More »
  

ND/NF 2011 Review: SHUT UP LITTLE MAN! AN AUDIO MISADVENTURE
(Shut Up Little Man! Screens as a part of New Directors/New Films Saturday, April 2nd, and Sunday, the 3rd; links below) For one of the most compelling documentaries I've seen on media in a long time (and I take in... More »
  

ND/NF 2011 Review: SOME DAYS ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS
The most resonant conceit in Some Days Are Better Than Others, its main conceptual takeaway, is clever in a way that transcends cleverness and gives off a whiff of zeitgeist-stalking: these days auditioning for Reality TV can be a very... More »
  

ND/NF 2011 Review: OUTBOUND (a.k.a. "PERIFERIC")
Pet peeve: when movies, especially thrillers or dark dramas, take pains to show us a television broadcasting vintage cartoons in the background of a shot. Is there a more overused and cutesy way of quoting media within media? First, if... More »
  

Blu-Ray Review: THE WALKING DEAD
When Lost went off the air last spring who knew that it would be back so soon--and that it would be called The Walking Dead? With its small band of survivors that finds itself in one precarious situation after another... More »
  
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Featured Articles

Learning from the Masters of Cinema: Henri-Georges Clouzot's THE MURDERER LIVES AT 21

While Henri-Georges Clouzot is best remembered for many of his later films, including The Wages of Fear and Diabolique, the French filmmaker's 1942 debut has gone largely unseen by Western audiences until now. The Murderer Lives at 21 (L'Assassin Habite au 21), based on the novel by Belgian author Stanislas-Andre... More »

China Beat: What did China See in IRON MAN 3?

Much has already been written, both on these pages and many others, about the landmark Hollywood-China co-production that is Marvel and DMG Entertainment's Iron Man 3. The film, directed by Shane Black, is the third solo outing for Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark, and has proved a phenomenal success around... More »

FEAR & LOATHING AT CANNES, PART 2: I'M IN LOVE WITH EVERYBODY'S GIRL

CHAPTER 4: THE PHILOSOPHY OF ANNA KARINA AND BUTT PLUGSI'm sitting outside at a small Café that my editor told me to meet him at. I'm a 10 minute walk from the Marche Du Film convention hall and I'm still waiting for my editor to arrive so he take guide... More »

CINEMA HOLOCAUST ON THE FRENCH RIVIERA, PART 1: THOSE GOD DAMN FILM BLOGGERS

MIKE'S JOURNAL. MAY 13. MORNINGI wake up sometime around five AM. My flight to France doesn't leave until five PM. I should be there for security check in sometime around 3PM. There is no reason for me to be up this early but I'm feeling anxious. I have an itch... More »

FEAR & LOATHING AT CANNES, PART 1: A MAN'S HANDSHAKE SAYS EVERYTHING

CHAPTER ONE: THE BIGGER THE SIDEBURNS, THE BIGGER THE ASSHOLE. I've hit the big time now. I've finally made it. I'm in like Flint from here on out. I'm boarding a plane to France where I'll be attending the Cannes Film Festival for the first time.No more unpaid blogging from... More »
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