African American · DVD & Blu-ray · Music & Musicals
The Good, the Bad, and the Disingenuous: Jazz on DVD
You get what you pay for, if you’re lucky
O Bruder, Where Art Thou? The 8th European Union Film Festival (Chicago)
Doing the Continental
Beyond Subtitles: Some Thoughts on Viewing Foreign Language Films
It’s the visuals, stupid
Mike Leigh’s 20th Century Snaps: Vera Drake and Naked
Two sides of the same desperate coin
Activist & Political · Crime · Horror
Training Day (for the Pacification of Iraq): Baghdad in the Ghetto
“You know what I learned today? I’m not like you.”
Sideways: Sideways to Hell, Maybe!
Alexander Payne’s new indie is headed in the wrong direction
Animation · Animators · Interviews
“It’s Amazing I’ve Survived”: An Interview with Bill Plympton
“The football game where the chicken mascot runs around crazy with an erection was inspired by a story that someone told me…”
In the Realm of Natural Transcendence: Emir Kusturica’s Life Is a Miracle
Out of the pastoral
Asian · Directors · Interviews
Talking to Hirokazu Kore-eda: On Maborosi, Nobody Knows, and Other Pleasures
“I simply want to look at people as they are.”
Film Technology & History · Producers & Studios
“Nice town. I’ll take it.” Howard Hughes and Hollywood
A salute to the playboy entrepreneur of Tinseltown
Activist & Political · Westerns
High Noon: Liberal Classic? Conservative Screed?
Or something else…
Distribute This! Kent Mackenzie’s The Exiles (1961)
This uncategorizable classic captures life in L.A.’s seamy underbelly
Drama · Historical & Epic · Reviews
Plumbing the Depths: Renoir and Kurosawa Do Gorky
Criterion’s double-feature DVD features two minor works by two major auteurs
No Cellos, Please, I’m American: Mike Nichols’ Closer Is Haute Merde
All glitz and no guts
Actors & Personalities · Directors · Interviews
“Plant Your Feet and Tell the Truth”: An Interview with Clint Eastwood
On Million Dollar Baby and a million-dollar career
Theda Bara’s Eyes: The 40th Chicago International Film Festival, Part 2
Angelopoulos to Zhu: “This is an artistic film. You wouldn’t like it.”
Directors · Drama · DVD & Blu-ray · Experimental & Underground · Reviews
Doing What Moves Them at the Moment: Five of Cassavetes’ Best on DVD
The master of improv gets his due courtesy of Criterion’s extras-laden box set
The Aviator: Marty and Leo Do Howard
It all started when his mother washed his balls
Quickies: Random Short Reviews from Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean to The Witch Who Came from the Sea
“God made us all perfect, truly he did!”
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