Main Street

May 24, 2004 — By piling on naturalistic details to keep the heat constantly in our minds, Akira Kurosawa creates a visual and behavioral excess that highlights the fixation of his hero on retrieving his stolen gun.

Dec 4, 1995 — While Carol Reed’s psychological noir is the most compassionate of movies, it’s a poetic summary of twentieth century harshness—of what can be called the inhuman condition.

Dec 28, 1993 — In his touchstone of postwar Japanese cinema, Kenji Mizoguchi uses woman’s fate to reveal the human cost of oppression.

Apr 23, 1990 — Paying little attention to civilized rules of cinema, and with a bit more than one million dollars, Steven Soderbergh expresses all his hidden anxieties in this indie classic.

Aug 21, 2026 — Touring David Lynch’s LA, listening to screenwriter Samy Burch, and deciphering Adam Curtis.

Jun 26, 2026 — We’re tracking the unconventional flows of Zidane, Eephus, and Castration Movie; plus Pedro Costa on Mizoguchi and Tourneur.

Apr 27, 2026 — During the evening rush on a busy Los Angeles boulevard, a man steps into a news-vendor’s stall and scans the out-of-town papers section, where journals offer balm for homesick travelers and transplants. But his hometown, Evanston, Illinois, is missing—no call...

Apr 7, 2026 — The third edition opens with Maddie’s Secret and features Chronovisor, After Dreaming, and Blue Heron.

Mar 6, 2026 — Jonathan Rosenbaum returns to the Reader, there’s a new Cineaste, plus: Hiroshi Shimizu, John Akomfrah, and Robert Vas.

Nov 18, 2025 — This tale of paranoia and romantic jealousy slyly combines the conventions of popular Mexican filmmaking with the surrealist sensibility that made its director, Luis Buñuel, a legendary figure in his native Spain.