Life Is Life

Oct 20, 2021 — The late director of Canoa: A Shameful Memory aimed “to show people the real Mexico.”

Jul 27, 2021 — The directors of Zola and Time will direct adaptations of novels by the acclaimed science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler.

Jul 13, 2021 — Critics assess new work from Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Paul Verhoeven, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, François Ozon, Joachim Trier, and more.

Jun 28, 2021 — Next month brings a twenty-seven-film spotlight on the neonoir thrillers of the post-studio-system era, a survey of art-house animation from around the world, and more.

Jun 11, 2021 — “The whole world is dying of panicky fright.” The opening on-screen text of Todd Haynes’s Poison promises an unsettled experience. Yet these words also might as well be predicting the puritanical response to the film that erupted from conservative quarters. After winning...

Feb 26, 2021 — First Person When I was eight years old, I discovered what it meant to be of two minds. I didn’t discover this in any intellectual way; this was brought to bear on me in 1973 because that’s the year my...

Feb 16, 2021 — Reviews are strong for the biography of the unique theater and film director, comedian and actor.

Jan 22, 2021 — List-topping westerns, color-drenched musicals, and rule-breaking documentaries are in the news this week.

Aug 11, 2020 — I’ve often found that the most successful short films and short stories apply what Ernest Hemingway called the “iceberg theory,” distilling a larger narrative into a very specific moment that allows audiences to infer the bigger picture in their own...

Jul 27, 2020 — The first shot of Atom Egoyan’s 1984 debut feature, Next of Kin, is a ground-level pan across the baggage claim section at Toronto’s Pearson Airport. The camera is angled so that our gaze is on the various pieces of luggage...