The Big Street

Oct 17, 2023 — I. “Morbid Cinema” On October 10, 1962, there appeared a brief paragraph from the Associated Press: “Tod Browning, eighty-two, who directed scores of movies between 1917 and 1939, is dead. He succumbed Saturday after an illness, and no funeral plans...

Aug 11, 2023 — Back in the early 1980s, people were still trying to figure hip-hop out.Now in its fiftieth year, this cultural movement built by DJs, rappers, break dancers, and graffiti writers began in New York, spreading from the South Bronx to the...

Jan 26, 2023 — This great director from the golden age of Mexican cinema drew upon a wide range of styles to explore the conflict between tradition and modernity.

Dec 12, 2022 — The great but underrated Hollywood star Irene Dunne made her transition to screwball comedy by playing the scandal-courting author at the heart of Theodora Goes Wild.

Nov 22, 2022 — Spike Lee’s transcendent portrait of an American hero is an urgent call for the nation to live up to everything it claims to be.

Aug 16, 2022 — The Safdie brothers drew inspiration from their childhood memories for their first feature as codirectors, a terrifying yet wondrous portrait of an unpredictable father.

May 13, 2022 — It wasn’t always smooth going for Max Ophuls, Mike Hodges, or Irrfan Khan.

Feb 22, 2022 — Acting, that undefinable amalgam of technique, persona, and plain hard work, dominates this month’s roundup.

Nov 23, 2021 — Written and directed by the Safdie brothers, Josh and Benny, as a vehicle for two icons, funnyman Adam Sandler and basketball great Kevin Garnett, Uncut Gems (2019) is breathtakingly profane, alarming, and comic. Most simply described, the movie is one...

Sep 21, 2021 — Johnnie To pays homage to Akira Kurosawa in this martial arts drama about the virtue of struggle and self-improvement.