Laughter

Jun 11, 2019 — The problem with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies, everyone agrees, is that there is never enough dancing. You have to wait through often silly plots and hit-or-miss comedy for the musical numbers that are the whole point. But the dances...

Jun 4, 2019 — The great Hollywood portrait photographs are like close-ups that never end. Cinema is an art of faces, and the chance to gaze at them, to get lost in them, may be the deepest thrill movies offer. In the darkness of...

May 24, 2019 — Elia Suleiman, who returned to Cannes this year with his latest film, talks with us about comedy as a form of political resistance.

Apr 26, 2019 — New issues of Screening the Past and cléo are out this week, and new restorations are opening in New York.

Apr 12, 2019 — This week sees further remembrances of Agnès Varda, reflections on Godard then and now, and appreciations of a vital but too often overlooked filmmaker, Nelly Kaplan.

Mar 13, 2019 — Women’s stories are central to five of the six top prize winners.

Mar 12, 2019 — By dint of perseverance, Harold Lloyd, the modest son of Burchard, Nebraska, became the prince of Hollywood, California, where he lived the Horatio Alger dream. His life and his memorable films alike echo Alger’s theme of young men who apply...

Mar 6, 2019 — Performances As Howard Hawks was preparing to make His Girl Friday, his 1940 version of the classic Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur play The Front Page, he was determined not to repeat what he felt had been a problem with his earlier comedy Bringing Up...

Nov 15, 2018 — In two made-for-television productions, a middle-aged Ingmar Bergman blurred the boundaries between screen and stage.

Sep 24, 2018 — This faithful screen adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’s legendary play explores a wide range of perspectives on working-class black life, and over the years has inspired reactions just as diverse.