The Vulgar Cinema (and letters to John McTiernan)

I am excited to announce that a group of writers I admire tremendously invited me to contribute to a new blog devoted to what has been termed "vulgar auteurism." Not so much a movement as a loose form of advocacy, it celebrates undervalued craft in critically overlooked genres, as well as the termitic properties of the best works. The term originated in discussion about primarily American entries in predominantly masculine genres, but we plan to discuss a wider variety of works outside our borders and in other equally ignored generic areas.

Our first posts are individual letters to John McTiernan, the recently incarcerated director of such great films as Die Hard and Predator. The responses are all nicely varied but uniformly adoring, and I doubt it will be the last time we discuss him.

So check out The Vulgar Cinema, and you can read my own letter to McTiernan here.