Being There

Mar 19, 2021 — We’ve been watching and reading about films by Cecilia Mangini, Cheryl Dunye, Claire Denis, and Nina Menkes.

Mar 9, 2021 — “Oral tradition is a tradition of images. What is said is stronger than what is written; the word addresses itself to the imagination, not the ear. Imagination creates the image and the image creates cinema, so we are in direct...

Jan 28, 2021 — The 2021 edition is a nationwide celebration of fresh talent.

Jan 11, 2021 — Apted’s lasting legacy will be the Up series, one of the most moving and influential works of nonfiction ever made.

Oct 26, 2020 — A handful of journals offer welcome diversion in anxious times.

Oct 7, 2020 — Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project No. 3 Spanning almost fifty years and four continents, Criterion’s recently released third collection of films restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project is a treasure trove of discoveries, each illuminated by a unique...

Sep 22, 2020 — The New Yorker’s music critic traces the history of the composer’s impact on art, culture, and the movies.

Aug 11, 2020 — The Complete Films of Agnès Varda In September 2018, I screened Agnès Varda and JR’s Faces Places for the Michigan State University Film Collective. We had a lively discussion that went past the scheduled ending time. As I was getting...

Jul 17, 2020 — Studio Ghibli for the kids, Bergman and Pasolini for the grownups, and more highlights from the week that was.

Jul 3, 2020 — As The War of the Worlds is essentially a cautionary tale, each generation gets its own adaptation of H. G. Wells’s classic account of extraterrestrial invasion—one of the several seminal science-fiction novels, also including The Time Machine (1895) and The...