Cal

Nov 19, 2020 — For most of my life, makeover sequences in film comedies held an irresistible allure. The mousy young woman who realizes her own inner and outer (but mostly outer) beauty after receiving the attentions of the right man (or the right...

Nov 18, 2020 — In Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil (1983), often considered the essay film, we meet the wildcat video game designer Hayao Yamaneko, who imports scenes from his life into his memory machine. The machine is shown only in parts: a slider being...

Nov 18, 2020 — The author of books on Ben Wheatley and the Coen brothers turns to one of the most lauded living filmmakers in American cinema.

Nov 17, 2020 — Consider Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) as a very promiscuous romance picture above anything else—even if not all of its many objects of affection are what you might call properly human and there is no...

Nov 17, 2020 — Along with Dead Man (1995), his previous narrative feature, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai marks a quantum leap in the Jim Jarmusch universe—a discovery of history (both antiquity and tradition) that carries with it a sense of gravity and even tragedy...

Nov 13, 2020 — We’re keeping busy with online festivals, awards nominations, remembrances, and plenty of weekend reading.

Nov 12, 2020 — All five films up for best feature are directed by women.

Nov 11, 2020 — Claire Denis When Robert Pattinson tested positive for COVID-19 in September, Warner Bros. shut down the production of Matt Reeves’s The Batman for a couple of months. Shooting has since resumed, but Claire Denis’s schedule has been thrown off. She’d...

Nov 9, 2020 — Critics find the story behind the writing of Citizen Kane steeped in all the glory and sleaze of Old Hollywood.

Nov 5, 2020 — A new 4K restoration of Fellini’s 1954 classic is now playing in virtual theaters from coast to coast.