[REC]²

Mar 16, 2009 — Dave Kehr heralds the rediscovery of “the oceanic depth and diversity of Japanese cinema” in recent years, “thanks in no small part to home video,” in a lovely New York Times piece on the latest example of that, Eclipse Series...

Mar 14, 2009 — Many of us have fond memories of sunny weekend jaunts to the country. But how many can boast spending those outings with Francis Ford Coppola and Akira Kurosawa? Only Wim Wenders, whose hiccup-fraught trip to Coppola’s Napa Valley home in...

Mar 10, 2009 — Akira Kurosawa made Dodes’ka-den (1970) during the most crisis-laden period of his career. He had just spent two years embroiled in an ill-fated venture with the Hollywood studio Twentieth Century Fox to direct the Japanese segments of the World War...

Feb 23, 2009 — “Those looking for a smart laugh at the expense of the geniuses who steered us into the economic ditch might like to have cinematic wit Luis Buñuel back from the dead,” writes Seth Colter Walls, in an unusual, intriguing feature...

Feb 3, 2009 — Luis Buñuel’s surrealist satire is the last film he made in Mexico, the last one in which he used Mexican actors, and most significantly the last one on which he worked with the great Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa.

Jan 14, 2009 — Gregory Nava, with his writing partner and producer, Anna Thomas, made the courageous decision to tell their story of a cold-war battleground from the point-of-view of the colonized “natives,” eschewing an English-speaking protagonist.

Jan 7, 2009 — If you’ve ever wanted to know more about Criterion’s cover designs for the films of Wes Anderson, check out this week’s issue of Time Out Chicago. In “5 Minutes with Ian Dingman,” Jake Malooley interviews the artist who supplied the...

Dec 10, 2008 — Renowned author, film scholar, and Wong Kar-wai well-wisher David Bordwell takes a peek at the new Criterion edition of Chungking Express on his personal blog. Bordwell, who’s written about the artistry of this dynamic auteur in his books Planet Hong...

Nov 27, 2008 — An enormous welter of insoluble problems is on display in Luis Buñuel’s classic—the ending solves nothing; the story just begins again.

Nov 4, 2008 — Postelection blues? Need a political fix and don’t know where to turn now that all the polling data is in? In an effort to fill that void, the Washington Post today recommends a list of great politically themed television on...