Thappad

Jan 10, 2020 — How many times, in cultural history, has surrealism been declared out for the count? For the German philosopher Walter Benjamin, writing in 1929, surveying the surrealist literature of André Breton, Robert Desnos, and Louis Aragon, the glory days of this...

Dec 23, 2019 — Fear and desire lie at the heart of Peter Strickland’s cinema, whether he’s exploring those themes through the sonic, the sexual, the sartorial, or some diabolical combination of all three. With his masterful sense of film technique, the British director...

Dec 4, 2019 — Songbook Midway through Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank (2009), the plot pivots on a song. “You’ve got some weird shit in here,” says Joanne (Kierston Wareing,), riffling through the CDs in her new boyfriend’s car. It’s the morning after a boozy...

Dec 3, 2019 — Performances If there was one mother-daughter television date my busy mum was always willing to down tools for, it was a Bette Davis movie. Her favorite—and mine, for the preteen period when I gave the thumbs-up to anything my mother...

Nov 8, 2019 — Woman of Tokyo (1933) screens tonight in Los Angeles, and Tokyo Twilight (1957) will play for a week in New York.

Nov 7, 2019 — Two of the most spellbinding scenes in any Hollywood movie: In the first, Judy Garland, bedecked in a cinched, blue-and-white-striped dress, and topped with a long, auburn wig, sings of her longing for “the boy next door,” her adorable, ginger-peachy...

Sep 9, 2019 — The jury presided over by Lucrecia Martel has surprised just about everyone.

Aug 2, 2019 — 1. Spike Lee was inspired to write Do the Right Thing by what is now known as the Howard Beach incident. On December 20, 1986, a mob of twelve angry white men chased down and beat three black men who...

Jul 18, 2019 — While the focus is on new films by young directors, the guest of honor will be the renowned Shinya Tsukamoto.

Jul 17, 2019 — In Spain, as Pedro Almodóvar was getting ready to leave home, no young man argued with his father about politics, no one wanted to discuss or refight the Civil War. Instead, the argument was about the length of your hair,...