The Group

May 12, 2014 — The Italian cinema expert describes the immense popularity of Dino Risi’s film in its home country, and the way it deepened the commedia all’italiana genre.

Jan 30, 2014 — Growing up with the epically zany, star-studded comedy.

Jul 23, 2013 — The Oscar-winning Babette’s Feast has a cinematic flavor unlike any other film. Director Gabriel Axel invites viewers to swoon over the sensual and spiritual experience of the climactic meal as if they were eating it themselves. By the end of...

Sep 13, 2012 — Horror fans might assume that director Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead movies wrote the book on cursed bibles of the damned. But years earlier, in 1967, The Equinox . . . A Journey into the Supernatural, one of the films in this week’s...

Apr 24, 2012 — An unverifiable, if heartfelt, assertion: For the quarter century between 1945 and 1970 (or from Rome Open City to Fellini Satyricon), the world’s greatest popular cinema was produced in Italy—a realm of glamorous superstars, sensational comedians, and great genre flicks....

Oct 25, 2011 — The film is made up of a succession of small visions, observed and executed with apparent ease but thought through with such exquisite care and attention that the experience becomes overwhelming.

May 8, 2011 — Performances In her performances, actress Shelley Duvall often seems as though she’s walking through a fog. Her gawky-elegant string-bean body moving as though on a conveyer belt, her perpetually goggling saucer eyes staring out at the world yet seeming to...

Dec 2, 2009 — It’s hard to believe, but it’s been thirty years since average joe Brian Cohen was mistaken for the Messiah in Monty Python’s Life of Brian. For the UK’s Telegraph, writer Sanjeev Bhaskar looks back fondly at the production and outraged...

Aug 19, 2009 — I Am Waiting: Port of Call The year: 1957. The city: Yokohama, not far from the piers. The sound of the tide softly lapping against stones in the darkness, cubes of black ice in a tumbler of foam. Night. Rain....

Jul 19, 2004 — In Yasujiro Ozu’s hands, the extended-family drama widened its focus to encompass friends, neighbors, and employers.