Writing

Film Comment
Seeing Double: Shane & Everybody Wants Some!!
Monte Hellman
May/June 2020: The Ecstatic Art
Present Tense: Citizens Band
Present Tense: Arizona Dream
Present Tense: Jean Arthur
Present Tense: Martha Coolidge
March/April 2020: Never Rarely Sometimes Always and Prince of Tides
Present Tense: Miracle on Ice
Present Tense: Nick Nolte
Present Tense: Daughters of the Sun
January/February 2020: Bombshell
Present Tense: Used Cars
Present Tense: Sophia Takal
November/December 2019 issue: Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life
Present Tense: Kristen Stewart
Present Tense: Tomboys
Present Tense: Angel Baby
Present Tense: Audience vs. Alone
Present Tense: Brett Hanover’s Rukus
Present Tense: The Death Scene
Present Tense: Matthias Schoenaerts
September/October 2019 issue: Noah Baumbach’s career
Present Tense: Female Comedians
Present Tense: Out of the Blue
Present Tense: Back-ting
Present Tense: What Happened Was…
TCM Diary: The Chemistry Set
Present Tense: Sylvia Plath Goes to the Movies
Present Tense: Rolling Thunder Revue
TCM Diary: They Were Expendable
Present Tense: Infinite Brando
Present Tense: Almost Like Falling in Love
Present Tense: Frank O’Hara at the Movies
May-June 2019: Review of The Souvenir
March/April 2019: Review of A Face in the Crowd
March/April 2019: Review of Hollywood Jim Crow
TCM Diary: Man of Aran
TCM Diary: Sounder
In Memoriam: Nicolas Roeg
TCM Diary: The Canterville Ghost
September/October 2018 issue: Tamara Jenkins’ Private Life
TCM Diary: Dorothy Malone Knows
TCM Diary: High Society
The River’s Roar: Mary Ellen Bute’s Passages from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake
March/April 2018 issue: “Wicked Torment”: Thomas Mitchell in Moontide
TCM Diary: Love Me or Leave Me (1955)
Jan/Feb 2018 issue: Review of Phantom Thread
Best Films of 2017
Nov/Dec 2017 issue: Review of Lady Bird
TCM Diary: Elvis, Actor
May/June 2017 issue: Review of The Wedding Plan
TCM Diary: Kim Stanley
TCM Diary: Faulkner’s Tomorrow
September/October 2016 issue: “Sweet Agony:” Dean Stockwell in Compulsion
Best Films of 2016
TCM Diary: Miriam Hopkins!
TCM Diary: The Night Digger and Alice, Sweet Alice.

The Criterion Collection
Elvis’s Adventures in Hollywood
After Hours: No Exit
Raging Bull: Video essay on De Niro, Pesci, and Moriarty
The Worst Person in the World: Lost and Found
Bringing Up Baby: Bones, Balls and Butterflies
Dance, Girl, Dance: Gotta Dance
The Great Escape: Not Caught
The Hot-Blooded Love Cry at the Cold Heart of Badlands
What They Found: Our Contributors Share Their 2018 Discoveries
Bergman’s Actors: The Eerie Intensity of Ingrid Thulin
Bergman’s Actors: Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson, Sisters in the Art
Something Wild: Last Chances
The Long Shadow of Gilda (1946)
Video-essay on Gena Rowlands for Love Streams (1984)

The Moviegoer: Library of America
Unforgettable lonely boy James Dean carries East of Eden on his narrow shoulders

Academy Awards: Governors Awards Tribute Reel Narration
Editor Anne V. Coates, 2016, narration read by Diane Lane
Actress Gena Rowlands, 2015, narration read by Angelina Jolie

Sight & Sound magazine
Summer 2021 issue: Hidden Heroes feature, on Anne V. Coates
December 2019 issue: On Netflix’s Unbelievable
October 2018 issue: The final shot in Shampoo
August 2018 issue: FlickLit special, on Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays

Los Angeles Times
Classic Hollywood’s glory and sins, distilled through the women around Howard Hughes

The New York Times
Feud: Bette and Joan’ Episode 1: Sui Generis, if Not So Generous
Feud: Bette and Joan’ Episode 2: Give the People What They Want
Feud: Bette and Joan’ Episode 3: Mommy Knows Best. Or Maybe Not.
Feud: Bette and Joan’ Episode 4: Aftermath
Feud: Bette and Joan’ Episode 5: Taking the Stage
Feud: Bette and Joan’ Episode 6: Midnight Descending
Feud: Bette and Joan’ Episode 7 Recap: Feminism 101
Feud: Bette and Joan’ Season Finale: Two Seconds

Oscilloscope Laboratories
Booklet essay for What Happened Was… (1994)
Mirror, Mirror: When Movie Characters Look Back at Themselves
Remember My Forgotten Women: The Dire Worlds of “Sucker Punch” and “Gold Diggers of 1933″

Arrow Video
On Woody Allen’s Another Woman (1988)
On Robert Altman’s Gosford Park (2002)

The Dissolve
Tap World (2015)
Bravetown (2015)
The Girl Is In Trouble (2015)
Farewell to Hollywood (2015)
The 50 Best Films of the Decade So Far, Part 1
Cake (2015)
Beside Still Waters (2014)
The Heart Machine (2014)
The Canal (2014)
Last Hijack (2014)
Swim Little Fish Swim (2014)
Last Weekend (2014)

Bright Wall/Dark Room
Riotous Excursions: Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby
“Why Do You Have to Carry the Burden of Someone Else’s Life?” A Conversation about Running on Empty
Love Me Tender (1956)
Venetian Blinds and Gleaming Silver Pistols: Sudden Fear (1952)
You Are What You Do: His Girl Friday (1940)

Movie Mezzanine
Time After Time: Looking Back on Before Sunrise
To Be Okay: An Interview with Shawn Christensen

Podcasts
A Very Good Year: 1953 with Sheila O’Malley
The Last Thing I Saw: Billy Wilder
Watch with Jen: Pre-Code Films
The Last Thing I Saw: Hamilton, 8 Mile, Jackass and more!
Ticklish Business: Viva Las Vegas
Speeding Bullitt: on The Great Escape and Steve McQueen
The Film Comment Podcast: Jean Arthur and Dead Ringers
The Film Comment Podcast: Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir
The Film Comment Podcast: Amazing Grace and the Concert Film
The Film Comment Podcast: Ida Lupino
The Film Comment Podcast: Rep Report #1
The Film Comment Podcast: Phantom Thread
Oscar Smackdown: Nathaniel Rogers and I discuss the 1984 Best Supporting Actress noms
Cinephiliacs: Peter Labuza and I discuss Opening Night and other topics

Flavorwire
The 50 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time

Capital New York 2010-2013
Polisse
Interview with Alex Karpovsky about Rubberneck
Interview with director Shawn Christensen about Curfew
Interview with director Tom O’Brien
The Russian Winter
Booker’s Place: A Mississippi Story
Curfew
Downeast
Fairhaven
Jennifer Lawrence
Now, Forager
Las Acacias
The Kid With a Bike
2011 Best Picture Nominees
2011 Best Actor Nominees
2011 Best Actress Nominees
2011 Best Supporting Actor Nominees
2011 Best Supporting Actress Nominees
Cold Weather
Creepy Kids in Cinema
Interview with Ron Eldard about Roadie
Iron Lady
Iron Ladies of Cinema
War Horse
Top 10 Films of 2011
Rose Byrne
Charlie Chaplin
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
The restored King of Comedy
Shame
The Ides of March
A Dangerous Method
This Is Not a Film
George Harrison: Living in the Material World
A Separation
Carnage
The Turin Horse
Melancholia
Moneyball
Contagion
Midnight in Paris
The Help
Tree of Life
The House of Blue Leaves
Stuck Between Stations
Roadie
The Miners’ Hymns
Cinema Komunisto
Cairo Exit
Flowers of Evil
Jane Eyre
Certified Copy
The Company Men
The Housemaid
Blue Valentine
True Grit

Epicurious
Every Recipe in The Godfather
Every Recipe in When Harry Met Sally
Every Recipe in Pulp Fiction

Press Play
God is the Bigger Elvis

Salon.com

The House Next Door
The Mystery of Screen Acting: An Interview with Author Dan Callahan
“Talk About the Movie”: A Bug’s Life and Up
Fully Realized: On Natasha Richardson in Cabaret
Gone Away, Come Back: Mickey Rourke
Indelible Ink: Paul Newman
William Holden: To Live Like a Human Being
5 for the Day: Jeff Bridges
5 for the Day: Cary Grant
You, the Jury: Joan Crawford, Otto Preminger, and Daisy Kenyon
5 for the Day: Dean Stockwell
5 for the Day: Kate Hepburn
Between Heaven and Earth
Where God Left His Shoes
Fireworks Wednesday
Autumn Adagio
La Vie au Ranch
R
Mama
Sun Spots
The Temptation of St. Tony
Cold Water of the Sea
C’est Déjà L’ete
Street Days

The Sewanee Review
“Two Birds,” a personal essay about my father and Irish literature. The 2006 Irish Letters edition.

1 Response to Writing

  1. Gerry McLafferty says:

    Hi Sheila

    I read about your work in the booklet accompanying the ‘Masters of Cinema’ version of The Quiet Man, one of my favorite films. I am President of the Elvis Presley Film Society which has been in existence since 1995 here in Glasgow, Scotland. I read some of your writings on Elvis’s screen work and can wholeheartedly agree that he was something of an underrated actor. His best performances, in my opinion, came in King Creole and Flaming Star, where it was clear that he was not relying on some formulaic structure, but delivered a compelling performance as troubled characters in each case.

    I have had two books published on Elvis – Elvis Presley in Hollywood: Celluloid Sell-Out in 1989, and in 2000 the title Elvis Presley: The Power and the Persecution. I still contribute the occasional feature to some of the better Elvis magazines, generally at their invitation.

    Anyway, I thought I would contact you and wish you well in your future work, and to tell you that it is refreshing to read something positive on Elvis’s much-maligned screen work.

    Best regards

    Gerry McLafferty
    President, Elvis Presley Film Society

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