The Famous Sword

Jun 1, 2017 — Earlier this spring, Ryuichi Sakamoto gave an exquisitely intimate concert at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. Surrounded by a small audience in the venue’s opulent Veterans Room, the renowned Japanese composer was positioned in the center of the...

Sep 20, 2016 — Cloaked in chiaroscuro and innuendo, this stylistically innovative creature feature leaves its greatest horrors to the imagination.

Dec 1, 2015 — Critic Todd McCarthy takes an inside look at Michael Ritchie's outdoor drama, which he calls “spare, cut to the bone, as fine as dry powder. Had Hemingway ever written about competitive skiing, this would have been the right style with...

Jun 5, 2013 — Remembering special effects legend Ray Harryhausen, who is being celebrated at the Aero Theatre in L.A. this month.

Apr 24, 2015 — Atypical in style and subject, Yasujiro Ozu’s early crime dramas show a future master brilliantly experimenting with camera and editing.

Jul 25, 2005 — Seijun Suzuki’s drama sees sexuality as a potent anarchic force that, in its implacable selfishness, brushes aside any sort of order or discipline.

May 27, 2025 — Suffused with slapstick humor and slightly surreal wit, Richard Lester’s beloved take on a frequently adapted adventure epic embodies a style of extravagant filmmaking that didn’t survive long past the 1970s.

Oct 30, 2018 — Ridiculous on the outside but full of truth on the inside, Rob Reiner’s fairy-tale classic is a childhood touchstone for generations of movie lovers.

Jun 27, 2012 — The warrior and philosopher protagonist of The Samurai Trilogy, Musashi Miyamoto, was a real-life seventeenth-century figure. Here, the translator of Musashi’s The Book of Five Rings tells us about this fascinating man and his principles of swordplay and spirituality.

Jan 20, 2026 — A smash hit at the box office, this electrifying adventure film established the team of director Michael Curtiz and actors Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland as one of the most iconic creative partnerships in Hollywood.