The Way Way Back

Jan 6, 2003 — “No one would claim that Lubitsch’s German films were more important than his American ones (cf. Fritz Lang).” This was Richard Roud’s response to my piece “Ernst Lubitsch: German Period” in his Cinema: A Critical Dictionary. One could indeed ask...

Nov 15, 1999 — Michael Powell’s controversial late film makes the cinema spectator’s own voyeurism shockingly obvious.

Oct 24, 2025 — It is hard to conceive of a film more dazzlingly, dizzyingly divided against itself—or one more appropriately so—than this delirious creation of screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky and director Ken Russell.

Sep 1, 2020 — It’s not impossible to be a lazy, shrug-it-off filmmaker, just as it isn’t to be a lazy painter or novelist, or, more to the point, a lazy comic artist, drawing each picture merely once and then moving on. (You could...

Jun 18, 2020 — When Jamie Babbit’s But I’m a Cheerleader made its theatrical premiere in July 2000, it was entering a queer political landscape vastly different from the one we live in today. Over the last two decades, we’ve witnessed the rise of LGBTQ...

Apr 17, 2017 — Artist and writer Dash Shaw chats with us about first discovering René Laloux’s 1973 sci-fi masterpiece and its lasting influence on his own illustration style.

Nov 25, 2014 — More than just observational, Les Blank’s sensual documentaries are personal and participatory celebrations of American culture.

Dec 11, 2013 — This political drama was made in Mexico at a revolutionary moment and represents an extraordinary confluence of international talent.

Nov 20, 2012 — Michael Cimino’s visionary western is a superbly realized account of a shocking real American tragedy.

Jan 18, 2010 — Steven Soderbergh’s Che depicts the two military campaigns that defined the rise and fall of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, hero of the Cuban Revolution, who became in death a global icon of militant leftism—and of inchoate adolescent rebellion. As the latter,...