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!”
Asian · Essays · Exploitation & Erotica · Thrillers & Action
Against Pleasure, Against Identification: Feminism, Cultural Atheism, and the Tragic Subject (Part One)
Rescuing feminism from rape and queer theory
Baby, Take a Bow: That’s Million Dollar Baby
Clint Eastwood continues to surprise and thrill
DVD & Blu-ray · Music & Musicals
Shocking Times: Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue on DVD
While the counterculture turns on, Miles plugs in with startling results
Body and Soul: Bresson’s A Man Escaped and Lancelot of the Lake on DVD
Death, destruction, and … hope
What Is Love? Mania Akbari Talks About Life, Love, and 20 Angosht (20 Fingers)
This first-time director from Iran inspires cheers and controversy
Unhappy Together: Wong Kar-Wai’s 2046
“Why can’t it be like before?”
Secrets and Lives: Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake
“We know what we are, but not what we may be
Documentaries · LGBT & Queer · Memoir · Reviews
Going Mental: The Travesties of Tarnation
“He’d fuck himself if he could”
Norbert, We Hardly Knew Ye: Rethinking the Late German Composer
He composed “Lili Marleen” and, oh yeah, hundreds of other songs and scores
How to Murder John Williams: Toward an Ideology of Contrapuntal Antirealism
To construct musicality through expressionism, or to express musicality through constructivism?
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