A Beautiful Star

Jan 20, 2021 — Knausgaard on Bergman and Adam Nayman on Armond White on Steven Spielberg are among this month’s highlights.

Dec 8, 2020 — Frederick Wiseman’s documentary ranks high in the latest round of lists of the best films and television of 2020.

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...

Sep 16, 2020 — When I think of Albert Brooks, the first image that invariably comes to mind is that of a worry-stricken man desperately impressing his anxieties upon a bemused, notably less nebbishy partner, presenting an elaborate case for the legitimacy of those...

Aug 14, 2020 — One Scene Over the course of an adventurous career that encompassed narrative and documentary filmmaking as well as photography, sculpture, and video installation, Agnès Varda was a shape-shifter who merged her deep engagement with social reality with a playful, endlessly...

Jul 28, 2020 — The films of Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda are graceful meditations on memory and the inextricable connections that bind our lives together. Whether transporting us to a way station in the afterlife or into a household in crisis, his character studies...

Jul 17, 2020 — Studio Ghibli for the kids, Bergman and Pasolini for the grownups, and more highlights from the week that was.

Jun 15, 2020 — This month we’re looking at books on topics ranging from Japanese animation to Hollywood movie stars to jazz on the big screen.

May 27, 2020 — Walking, like breathing, is something we do without thinking, an activity so commonplace that pedestrian has as its second meaning uninspired, ordinary, dull. Movies, however, reveal this action as more than just the original mode of getting from here to...

May 18, 2020 — The beloved stalwart of the Seattle filmmaking community and accomplished director of high-profile television series was only fifty-four.