Before, Now & Then

Apr 9, 2021 — Uncovering “The Naked City,” Bruce Goldstein’s scintillating chronicle of The Naked City’s groundbreaking New York location shoot, is more than the best “where-they-filmed-it” doc ever made. As Goldstein wittily traces director Jules Dassin’s Gotham roots and influences, this twenty-three-minute documentary—now...

Feb 24, 2021 — Hollywood is the unofficial ministry of propaganda for the United States. Newcomers to this country typically begin their process of Americanization well before they arrive, having been exposed, for quite some time, to the long-distance bombardment of American blockbusters. In...

Nov 5, 2020 — Performances Whenever I think of the iconic Bengali actor Supriya Choudhury, the first thing I recall is not her face—with its high cheekbones and large, kohl-rimmed eyes that often drew comparisons to Sophia Loren’s—but her voice, disembodied, tearing through the...

May 22, 2020 — The Times of Harvey Milk Today—May 22, 2020—would have been Harvey Milk’s ninetieth birthday. Harvey was forty-five when I first met him in his camera store; I was nineteen. Harvey was murdered when he was just forty-eight, and I’m now...

Sep 3, 2019 — Early verdicts diverge as widely as opinions on how to respond to the very idea of a new film by Roman Polanski.

Mar 5, 2018 — Along with 132 short films and a slew of masterclasses, installations, discussions, and other events, the Berlin International Film Festival presented 253 features this year. I managed to catch twenty-seven of them, and Adina Pintilie’s Touch Me Not, winner of...

Feb 24, 2018 — New York. The Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art have announced the complete lineup for the forty-seventh New Directors/New Films festival, opening on March 28 with Stephen Loveridge’s Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. and closing on April 8 with...

Feb 15, 2018 — First up, that's Robert Pattinson in the image up there, the first, released just today, from Claire Denis’s High Life. Secondly, Ioncinema’s countdown of the most anticipated American independent films of 2019—again, twenty-nineteen—continues with notes on Shane Carruth’s The Modern...

May 30, 2017 — Lino Brocka brought an invigoratingly personal and socially conscious vision to Philippine cinema with this gritty portrait of Manila barrio life.

Jan 16, 2017 — Jack Garfein’s no-holds-barred account of sexual assault and trauma captures the volatile sensibility of the Actors Studio.