The Decline

Mar 31, 2021 — It has seemed to me for a long time that there is far too little screaming about Albert Brooks. It has seemed that way to all of his staunchest fans, who secretly relish being among the evolved few who know...

Sep 26, 2025 — The week brings a celebration of restorationists and the new and younger audiences showing up to see their work.

Feb 13, 2018 — With the scrappiest of means, George A. Romero created not only a landmark of independent cinema but also an indelible portrait of America as hellscape.

May 10, 2018 — The followup to Mrs. Fang is an oral history of China’s “Anti-Rightist Campaign” in the late 1950s.

May 17, 2017 — With her son, Felix Moeller (Forbidden Films), Margarethe von Trotta (The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, Hannah Arendt) will direct the documentary Ingmar Bergman – Legacy of a Defining Genius, reports Variety’s John Hopewell: “Exploring Bergman’s work with his closest...

May 5, 2023 — Along with an interview with Straub-Huillet, we’re reading a Taiwanese wuxia primer and assessments of work by Shinji Somai and Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Jul 6, 2017 — We open today’s round, considerably briefer than yesterday’s, with Ridley Scott double feature—of sorts. Movie City News alerts us to an article by Scott himself that originally appeared in the August 1979 issue of American Cinematographer: “I felt that Alien...

Sep 26, 2013 — Roberto Rossellini officially left neorealism behind with his modern masterpiece, an intimate tale of marriage on the rocks.

Jun 11, 2013 — Ingmar Bergman’s classic character study is a moving depiction of aging and regret but also joy and forgiveness.

Mar 26, 2013 — Charlie Chaplin manages to make a ruthless murderer likable in his brilliant satire of middle-class morality.