The subtle beauty of John M. Stahl’s early ’30s work is revealed by the exquisite 35mm prints screening at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in the series Universal Pictures: Restorations and[…]
Among Cahn’s champions is Dave Kehr, a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, who has programmed a four-week series (running through Wednesday, June 15) devoted to his tenure at[…]
Directors · Interviews · SF & Fantasy
The Lobster tries to look at how we are as people – what it means to be single, alone, or involved with someone and all of the constraints that society[…]
Directors · Drama · Interviews
For me, the idea of having an academy of muses is an impossible, if not ridiculous, idea; but, the discussions and debates that occurred among them struck me as fascinating,[…]
Asian · Directors · Documentaries · Interviews
Note: This interview was conducted in English during the Hong Kong International Film Festival in Sha Tin, Hong Kong, on 3 April 2016. The author wishes to thank Esther Yau,[…]
Drama · Memoir · Philosophy
FROM CABIN C AT OUDIN’S COURT COTTAGES I just awoke, and wondered where you were. It was the strangest feeling, like I really expected you to be there. Eventually my[…]
Cycles, Sequels, Spin-offs, Remakes, and Reboots: Multiplicities in Film and Television, Edited by Amanda Ann Klein and R. Barton Palmer (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016, 367pp, $29.95 from the[…]
Sonny says that now that he has completed the mission for which he was created – to kill Dr. Lanning – he does not know what to do with himself,[…]
The happy ending that sees the clown coupled with the girl never satisfies precisely because we know the clown’s appropriate place is one of “in-between-ness,” a position that stands in[…]
Activist & Political · Directors · Documentaries · Interviews
Editor’s note: This is the first of two interviews (next up: Nanni Moretti) our correspondent Amir Ganjavie conducted with directors at the 2016 Berlin Film Festival (Feb. 11-21). Gianfranco Rosi’s Fire[…]
Like Sylvia Plath’s mirror, which promises then imperils her ideal self, the gaze of the other in Persona is a double-edged sword: a threat to pure subjectivity but also the[…]
Activist & Political · Crime · Historical & Epic · War
The killers were more than willing to help and, when we filmed them boastfully describing their crimes against humanity, we met no resistance whatsoever. All doors were open. Local police[…]
Activist & Political · African American · Animation
Is it inconceivable that instead of taking on the forces of the underworld, the title character, Princess Tiana, do battle with the very real racist prejudice and legal injustice that[…]
Comedy · Directors · Historical & Epic · LGBT & Queer
Hail, Caesar! is not one of the Coens’ better films, but, because of its grab-bag of Hollywood silliness, it is perhaps the best at illuminating one of the main reasons[…]
“… the living being is only a species of the dead.” – Nietzsche * * * Dead Man. Dead Man’s Curve. Dead Man on Campus. Dead Man Walking (1988). Dead[…]
One member of the meeting, Bohdan Poremba, called Interrogation a “premeditated lie” and, in perhaps the strangest criticism of the film, expressed his disappointment that it only showed a few[…]
Spielberg, like many film directors, appears to be far more interested in film than life – interested in film, and interested in audiences, and how to move them through film.[…]
Directors · Documentaries · Silents
Robert Flaherty and Alice Nevalinga (aka Nyla, the smiling one) were romantically involved – or as McLane modestly puts it, “he had an Eskimo female companion.” * * * In[…]
Counterculture · Documentaries · DVD & Blu-ray · Music & Musicals
“BOB: Well, you always know who you are. I just don’t know who I’m gonna become.” – Sam Shepard. True Dylan: A One-Act Play as It Really Happened One Afternoon in[…]
Essays · Experimental & Underground · SF & Fantasy · Writers & Critics
These things never happen but are always. – Sallust The dead love the most, love the longest. – Malvina von Stille * * * INTRODUCTORY Centuries of thought and imagination,[…]
