This Is the End

Sep 17, 2019 — Fusing the melodrama of Douglas Sirk and the ballyhoo of William Castle, John Waters’ sixth feature, Polyester (1981), was a departure from the scrofulous 16 mm mode of production he had made his cult name plying to midnight-movie crowds in...

Jul 15, 2014 — Ihave an unusually easy way of remembering when I first became fascinated by Robert Bresson’s films. Pickpocket (1959) was the first one I saw, at the old Orson Welles theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in my late teens; it was also...

Jan 8, 2013 — 01   Because it’s the purest American road movie ever.  02   Because it’s like a drive-in movie directed by a French new wave director.  03   Because the only thing that can get between a boy and his car obsession is a...

Sep 26, 2012 — Countercultural icons Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov makes square subversive in Bartel’s cult classic.

May 20, 2009 — Early in Shohei Imamura’s Intentions of Murder, the librarian Riichi distractedly peruses Herbert Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization while conversing with his clinging mistress, Yoshiko. One can read the reference in many ways: as a glancing jest, as an (uncharacteristic) Imamurian...

Dec 2, 2022 — We’re sorting through the Sight and Sound poll and reading about Paweł Łoziński, the Sankofa Collective, and the first films ever made.

Apr 29, 2022 — This week swerves from the slick cinéma du look to the harshest punk noise.

Sep 11, 2026 — An eclectic mix this week: Iranian cinema, archival deep dives, Neptune Frost, Pauline Kael, and It Ends.

Dec 29, 2020 — Alongside the traditional top tens, critics are offering imaginative pairings and lists of the best audiovisual essays and title sequences of the year.

Dec 21, 2018 — New issues of Senses of Cinema and cléo this week, but also healthy seasonal doses of anxiety and lamentation.