GROSS - cinema history and criticism

GROSS/69 - 1978, part two - 3,000 words about the final 15 seconds of Grease

The strange apparatus of cinema…

Apr 1 • Steve Bowbrick

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March 2026

GROSS/69 - 1978 - Grease is a miserable thing but it has a magic realist ending that I can’t stop thinking about

You were probably in a school production of this strange and rather cruel story.

Mar 23 • Steve Bowbrick

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February 2026

GROSS EXTRAS - coming of age at the fin de siècle

The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg is a European aristocratic fable resolved in a very Hollywood way.

Feb 27 • Steve Bowbrick

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GROSS/68 - 1977, part three - science fiction epics on the geopolitical timeline

Indulge me while I insert Star Wars, Star Trek and Cixin Liu's Dark Forest into the 20th Century.

Feb 7 • Steve Bowbrick

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GROSS /68 1977, part two - Star Wars - another death star will be along presently

You wait till you see the dark enlightenment.

Feb 5 • Steve Bowbrick

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January 2026

GROSS/68 - 1977, part one - Star Wars - war on cinema, more like

Thinking about how to write about Star Wars. A free preview post.

Jan 31 • Steve Bowbrick

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GROSS/67 1976 - Rocky - simultaneously sweet and lofty and terribly dumb

Frank Capra somehow meets Bertolt Brecht.

Jan 26 • Steve Bowbrick

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GROSS EXTRAS - Moby Dick, Walter Benjamin and Eugene V. Debs

Now, in between the movie essays: interesting links, quotes and shorter pieces…

Jan 15 • Steve Bowbrick

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GROSS/66 1975 - Jaws - Spielberg’s suburban Moby Dick

Exemplary movie-making and extreme moral cowardice

Jan 9 • Steve Bowbrick

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December 2025

GROSS REVISIONISM - an updated (and now complete) Die Hard alphabet

A city within the City of Quartz.

Dec 29, 2025 • Steve Bowbrick

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Where do the AIs hang out?

The first post in a new publication, about what might turn out to be the single greatest threat to human autonomy and happiness in history.

Published on Paragraphs about AI • Dec 7, 2025

GROSS/65 1974 - The Towering Inferno - judgement on the 135th floor

A winnowing of the San Francisco elite

Dec 5, 2025 • Steve Bowbrick

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