Murder She Said

Jan 18, 2011 — By 1963, when he started filming Shock Corridor on a rented soundstage, Samuel Fuller had come ruefully and puckishly to view himself as a “Lindy,” a diminutive for Charles Lindbergh designating a prostitute who, like the famous aviator, operates solo,...

Dec 7, 2010 — In 1981, it seemed to me that a new era of fantastic cinema was upon us.

Dec 1, 2009 — This nonfiction masterwork by David and Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin is a terrifying snapshot of the sudden collapse of the sixties.

Sep 15, 2009 — Words are the trained fleas in David Mamet’s sidewalk circus—dirty words, often bloodstained, usually swarming, that perform their acrobatic stunts for gawkers who will likely get their pockets picked. That’s the reputation, anyhow. More than thirty years after he made...

Jun 22, 2009 — So much critical ink has been shed over Last Year at Marienbad that one might wonder if the flood of commentary, once receded, would take the film along with it. Alain Resnais’ second feature has been lavishly praised and royally...

Apr 27, 2009 — The idea of making a film about Japan’s most famous sex crime, with a decent budget and in conditions of complete freedom, reawakened Nagisa Oshima’s desire to direct—and the prospect of circumventing Japanese censorship must have made the decision even...

Sep 18, 2006 — Nobuo Nakagawa’s legendary, genre-­busting Japanese masterpiece explores the infernal desires that tempt us during our mortal existence—and the afterlife agonies awaiting those who succumb.

Aug 28, 2006 — Pietro Germi’s brilliant satire skewers Italian society’s devotion to appearances and its cultlike obsession with gossip and honor.

Apr 24, 2006 — This influential crime thriller, designed purely as a genre exercise, is the first in the long series of anomalies that was Louis Malle’s career.

Mar 27, 2006 — Louis Malle’s World War II–era drama follows a young collaborationist in rural France and asks how people with no interest in politics become active participants in brutal torture.