No Way Back

Nov 19, 2020 — For most of my life, makeover sequences in film comedies held an irresistible allure. The mousy young woman who realizes her own inner and outer (but mostly outer) beauty after receiving the attentions of the right man (or the right...

Nov 18, 2020 — The author of books on Ben Wheatley and the Coen brothers turns to one of the most lauded living filmmakers in American cinema.

Oct 1, 2020 — Few directors capture bodies in motion with the sensuous intensity that Claire Denis brings to her work. In some of the most memorable scenes in her filmography, she invites viewers to linger in moments where her characters lose themselves in...

May 21, 2020 — Judy O’Brien, a ballerina working in a burlesque show to make ends meet, has finally had enough. In the middle of an especially humiliating performance, the audience’s jeering reaches such a peak that she stops, walks down center stage, hands...

May 13, 2020 — Olivier Assayas, Sofia Coppola, and Paul Verhoeven have long-form serial narratives in the works.

Dec 19, 2019 — Lists (of course), but also philosophical surveys, biographies, and coffee table books are featured in this month’s round.

Nov 11, 2019 — Dark Passages I. Vacancy All the rooms are the same. There is always a skeletal bedstead with an uninviting mattress; a scuffed chest of drawers; a grimy little sink; a naked light bulb; bare walls on which the memory of...

Feb 25, 2019 — Turns out, not everyone loves a winner.

Oct 14, 2018 — If horror is going to be forever plagued by remakes and sequels, we could do worse than this year’s Halloween and Suspiria.

Oct 2, 2018 — The past weighs heavily on the present in Long Day’s Journey into Night, Ash Is Purest White, and A Family Tour.