My First Film

Dec 21, 2016 — Garrett Brown in our kitchen reenacting a Steadicam-shot scene from Blow Out In 1975, the cameraman Garrett Brown revolutionized filmmaking technology with the Steadicam, an invention that brought together the agility and immediacy of a handheld camera with the smoothness and...

Dec 12, 2016 — Patriotic masterminds choreograph capers from secret headquarters while dashing secret agents execute their plans by the light of flashing blades and gunfire. Jeopardy escalates second to second until our heroes and heroines escape by the skin of their teeth. Spy...

Nov 28, 2016 — PerformancesAny paean to noir seductress nonpareil Gloria Grahame—mine included—can’t hope to surpass this encomium from Boyd McDonald, one of her most ardent and articulate devotees. Saluting Grahame’s performance in In a Lonely Place (1950) in his essential 1985 compendium, Cruising...

Nov 22, 2016 — The result of a notoriously troubled production, Marlon Brando’s unorthodox western presents a brooding vision of human futility.

Nov 15, 2016 — Akira Kurosawa lays bare his deepest fears in this visually astonishing interpretation of folklore, myth, and the director’s own dreams and memories.

Oct 19, 2016 — Martha Karsh, editor of The Beatles A Hard Day’s Night: A Private Archive, published in September by Phaidon, talks about her family’s Beatlemania and assembling a book about the world’s most famous rock band.

Oct 5, 2016 — Rock critic Robert Christgau examines the evocative use of three early Leonard Cohen songs in Robert Altman’s brilliant revisionist western.

Sep 28, 2016 — The salacious sixties phenomenon of the Dirty Book made its way to the big screen in this adaptation of Jacqueline Susann’s best seller.

Aug 26, 2016 — ClippingsLast weekend, in conjunction with his new album, Blonde, musician and noted cinephile Frank Ocean released a limited-edition zine titled Boys Don’t Cry, which featured a list of his favorite films. Chungking Express, Eraserhead, Blood Simple, Solaris, Paris, Texas, and...

Aug 16, 2016 — Stig Björkman’s candid documentary gathers a wealth of material from Ingrid Bergman’s personal archive, revealing the star as a fastidious collector of her own memories.