After the war

Apr 29, 2025 — A black-and-white version of Julian Schnabel’s portrait of his fellow artist and friend Jean-Michel Basquiat accentuates the film’s melancholy mood while highlighting the deep commitment of Jeffrey Wright’s performance.

Oct 31, 2023 — With the full force of her imagination, director Nikyatu Jusu examines the complicated nature of Black motherhood, as well as the importance of Black communion as an antidote to racial oppression.

Feb 28, 2023 — In his directorial debut, Robert Townsend channeled his frustrations with the typecasting of Black actors, resulting in a satire whose hilarious critique of Hollywood still resonates today.

Oct 2, 2020 — The Lady Eve, from 1941, is my favorite of all of Preston Sturges’s comedies. I would wager to say that it’s Barbara Stanwyck’s best performance, though I also love her in Double Indemnity and Forty Guns. Heck, I love her in everything she’s in. But...

Feb 11, 2020 — How might four history-making Oscars impact movies from here on out?

May 16, 2019 — All week long, writers have been reminding us that there was more to Doris Day than sweet sunshine.

Dec 4, 2017 — The week begins with good news: Wes Anderson’s stop motion animated film Isle of Dogs will open the sixty-eighth Berlin International Film Festival (February 15 through 25). As the Berlinale reminds us, this is “the story of Atari Kobayashi, twelve-year-old...

Nov 28, 2017 — Ahead of the Christmas Day opening, preview screenings of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread in New York and Los Angeles began over the weekend and will continue through Thursday. Variety’s Kristopher Tapley suggests that “if you define a film as...

Sep 4, 2017 — Let’s start with the Telegraph’s Robbie Collin: “‘We all have history,’ shrugs Addie Moore, a widow living in small-town Colorado, when a friend advises that her new beau—a twinklingly handsome widower from a few doors down the street, called Louis...

Aug 7, 2017 — The big news to catch up with here is the launch of Film Critic: Adrian Martin, “almost 20 years, on and off, in the making.” Adrian Martin has been writing essential film criticism for four decades now, and what’s collected...