I Dood It

Mar 26, 2020 — Deep Dives BOOM! Mahler (1974) begins auspiciously and iconoclastically, as befits its director, with a peaceful lakeside scene shattered by an abrupt conflagration. The combusting hut echoes Kiss Me Deadly and anticipates The Sacrifice and Lost Highway (Lynch: “I got...

Mar 11, 2020 — One Scene With his Oscar-nominated debut feature, Beasts of the Southern Wild, director Benh Zeitlin brought to the screen a vision of Louisiana that combined the unique flavors and textures of his adopted home state with the magical twists and...

Mar 9, 2020 — “My objective is to create my own world, and these images which we create mean nothing more than the images which they are.” Andrei Tarkovsky More than three decades after his passing, the films of Andrei Tarkovsky retain their ability...

Jan 21, 2020 — Melancholy and offbeat, Anna Mantzaris’s stop-motion animated short Good Intentions tells the tale of a woman involved in a hit-and-run accident that sparks a chain of strange occurrences. Using chubby-cheeked felt puppets that might suggest a more charming, whimsical type of story,...

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...

Oct 15, 2019 — After breaking through in Medium Cool, Forster floundered until Quentin Tarantino plucked him from undeserved obscurity nearly thirty years later.

Sep 30, 2019 — At first glance, Jean-Pierre Melville’s body of work might seem to display a schizophrenic split between two currents or tendencies. The first is in total symbiosis with the history of France and is rooted in the filmmaker’s own life, notably...

Sep 9, 2019 — In his thought-provoking latest book, the critic and frequent Criterion contributor traces the complex ways European filmmakers have grappled with the influences of Christianity and modernity.

Aug 30, 2019 — In 1933, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations, after being censured for its invasion of Manchuria. Despite this, the majority of Japanese people remained avid consumers of American movies and Western fashion, which exasperated the militarists in power. A...

Aug 23, 2019 — After more than three decades in front of the camera, Natasha Lyonne understands a thing or two about what makes on-screen charisma. Previously best known for her early-career performances in films like Slums of Beverly Hills and But I’m a Cheerleader, she has in...