As It Is In Life

Mar 29, 2013 — When the world’s favorite comedian asked his audience to see him as a sociopathic serial killer, he was venturing where cinema had barely dared to tread.

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

Feb 5, 2013 — Keisuke Kinoshita’s most experimental film is a resplendent, kabuki-inspired, folk-derived drama about mortality.

Dec 12, 2012 — Even with limited resources, Christopher Nolan proved a force to be reckoned with in his thrilling, auspicious debut.

Aug 28, 2012 — The boy Quadrophenia’s Jimmy was based on (or was he?) talks to us about the mod life.

May 8, 2011 — Performances In her performances, actress Shelley Duvall often seems as though she’s walking through a fog. Her gawky-elegant string-bean body moving as though on a conveyer belt, her perpetually goggling saucer eyes staring out at the world yet seeming to...

May 25, 2010 — In the films of Stan Brakhage, the viewer’s role must be reimagined: from a passive receiver to one who meets the film halfway, actively plumbing the depths of its imagery and the various themes and ideas suggested by its subject...

Jan 19, 2010 — A Belgian in New York It was in the 1970s, the first decade of her career, that Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman created the works that would define her. Informed as much by her brushes with the experimental film scene in...

Oct 27, 2009 — Who speaks of Howards End these days? Who expounds on the virtues of this magnificent drama, whose traditional style seems almost as distant as its Edwardian setting? Seen today, years past its 1992 release, it strikes one as not only...

Jun 3, 2009 — We’ve pieced together comments from production designer Donald Burt and property master Hope Parrish of working with the supermeticulous and precise David Fincher on perfecting the atmosphere and historical accuracy of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. You can click...