Life

Jun 3, 2001 — Jacques Tati’s singular satire is a series of giddy encounters between people and things in which the wonders of “modern life” relinquish their functionality in favor of an unaccountably rapturous beauty.

Jun 26, 2000 — Brief Encounter was the fourth and final film that David Lean made in association with Noël Coward. Derived from Still Life, a one-act play which Coward included in the portmanteau Tonight 8:30, the story tells of a suburban housewife, Laura...

Dec 31, 1999 — As a tour de force of screen acting, Autumn Sonata stands unchallenged as the finest work of Ingmar Bergman’s last few years as a movie director. Fanny and Alexander may have won the Oscars, but Autumn Sonata represents Bergman’s chamber...

Nov 23, 1998 — Paul Morrissey’s gory comedy may be sensationally shlocky, yet it explores profound ideas about sexual liberty, individualistic freedom, and the commodification of everyday life.

Sep 18, 1995 — The global problem of domestic violence destroys families and, in a broader context, locks entire societies into a pathology of pain, distrust, and self-hate. When the basic building blocks of any society—the bonds between mother, father, children—are so grossly violated,...

May 9, 1994 — The importance of Two English Girls lies in its sheer vitality. The film is an extraordinary cinematic conjuring trick in which Truffaut draws the viewer both physically and visually into his own personal pleasures. He does this on a multitude...

Jan 11, 1994 — A harrowing nightmare about life in inner-city hell, this 1993 sleeper-hit is a powerhouse filmmaking debut by the Hughes brothers.

Sep 1, 1992 — The evolution of Jason and the Argonauts began in the late 1950s, after the initial success of 20 Million Miles to Earth. Harryhausen and his producer, Charles Schneer, decided to get away from doing “monster-on-the-loose” stories and try something more...

May 25, 1992 — If Max Ophuls hadn’t cooled his heels in Hollywood to flee the Nazis, his name might have conjured only the most unintelligible of foreign cinema—vague and inaccessible to the average American filmgoer. But in 1948 Ophuls was given an opportunity...

Dec 2, 1991 — Director Akira Kurosawa had wanted to make Throne of Blood for some time. “After finishing Rashomon [in 1950] I wanted to do something with Shakespeare’s Macbeth, but just about that time Orson Welles’s version was announced, so I postponed mine.”...