The Criterion Collection
Apr 26, 2016 — “It is not an exaggeration to say that before Primary, documentary as we know it today—the art of candid observation—didn’t exist,” writes Thom Powers.
In Theaters
Jan 14, 2016 — Repertory PicksThe Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, New York, hosts a recurring series called Sunday Schmooze, and on offer this weekend is Gabriel Axel’s 1987 gem Babette’s Feast. The Oscar-winning drama, based on a short story by Danish author Karen...
Oct 28, 2014 — What you hear is as crucial—and as funny—as what you see in Tati’s films.
Aug 7, 2014 — Performances Today, the idea that comedian-actor-writer Lily Tomlin possesses dramatic versatility is so received that one might not realize how unexpected it was for audiences to see her in a serious role in Robert Altman’s Nashville in 1975. At that...
Essays
Sep 18, 2013 — This chapter about director Richard Linklater’s beginnings, from the 1996 book Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes: A Guided Tour Across a Decade of American Independent Cinema, is by the former producer’s representative, creator and host of IFC’s Split Screen, and...
Aug 5, 2013 — For those of us who rank The Earrings of Madame de . . . at the top of our list of all-time favorite films, the mystery is why our passion isn’t universally shared. Every year, thanks to committed revival houses,...
May 14, 2013 — Delmer Daves’s classic western is psychologically probing, magnificently shot, and fascinatingly ambiguous.
Jul 6, 2012 — Samuel Fuller wrote this extraordinary “interview” piece shortly after White Dog was completed. It appeared in issue 19 of the journal Framework in 1982, with this introduction: “The director of Paramount’s White Dog interviewed the title actor of the movie...
Essays
Mar 27, 2012 — Written in five or six days in 1941, in a seaside hotel where he had gone to get away from the Blitz, and by all accounts scarcely revised before being mounted some six weeks later, Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit became...
Short Takes
Jul 8, 2011 — Marcel Carné’s rich backstage drama about the theater world of nineteenth-century Paris, Children of Paradise, is back—in a new form. Based on Jacques Prevert’s original scenario, a ballet version of the classic film, choreographed by José Carlos Martinez and scored...