Megan Ratner's work has appeared in Film Quarterly, Cineaste, Filmmaker, The New York Times, Film Comment, and Frieze. Location, location, location First-world living promotes a comforting fairy-tale that if we all work hard, very hard, the rewards of the market can be ours. But even the most upbeat[…]
Documentaries · Music & Musicals · Reviews
A group of rather spectacular performers – Nick Cave, Rufus Wainwright, Anna McGarrigle, Martha Wainwright, Kate McGarrigle and Antony among them — gathered at the Sydney Opera House in 2005[…]
Unmasking (the) America(n) Two of the largest influences on postwar American life were the virtual invention of the teenager and self-help. Something for nothing underlies the idea behind each development.[…]
Much to admire, little to love Swank and stately, New York’s gala is like the grande dame of film festivals. Absent the frantic pace of Berlin, Cannes, or Toronto, New[…]
“In short, completely normal.” A great deal of how the Third Reich presented itself and how we have come to know it is visual. Early on, the Nazis understood the[…]
When good ideas go wrong
DVD & Blu-ray · Music & Musicals
While the counterculture turns on, Miles plugs in with startling results
Two sides of the same desperate coin
This year’s fest features a wealth of winners and a few flops
Activist & Political · Documentaries
Corporations, go to the head of the line; everyone else, wait
Activist & Political · Documentaries · Reviews
Pay attention to that man behind the curtain
Plumbing the darkness o “sunny Italy” in the 1970s
A son looks at a father and sees much more in this superb doc
Olmi’s 1961 masterpiece comes to DVD in an excellent transfer
Not the best of times, not the worst of times
This year’s NYFF is a decidedly mixed bag of tricks
The ills of this wounded Everyman may be beyond healing.
Postwar despair, Italian style
Directors · DVD & Blu-ray · Reviews
Powell/Pressburger’s fairy tale comes to life on Criterion’s DVD
Fine performances are the main attraction of this timely New York tribute to recent French film.
