Not One and Not Two

Sep 26, 2012 — Countercultural icons Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov makes square subversive in Bartel’s cult classic.

Oct 4, 2011 — Vilified, censored, banned, denied commercial distribution, and long unavailable, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s infamous film lives more in reputation and rumor than in memory.

Mar 15, 2011 — Based on Louis Malle’s childhood memories, this period drama traces the wary, prickly friendship between two boys, one of whom is hiding from the Nazis.

Feb 2, 2011 — This essay first appeared in the winter 2010 issue of Brick, a literary journal based in Toronto. It is posted here by permission of the author. Michelangelo said he could sense the figure in the uncut stone; his job was...

Nov 25, 2010 — Five Easy Pieces is not a statement about America but a closely observed report. Or, perhaps, a confession.

Jan 26, 2010 — If Paris, Texas is a love letter to America and American cinema, it now also has something of the feel of a farewell: the world to which Wenders pays homage is vanishing fast.

Apr 27, 2009 — Stephen Frears’s gangland drama subverts its genre by removing its villains to an alternate mythic universe, that of the western, as its protagonists traverse the roads that snake through Spain’s arid hills and plains.

Feb 18, 2008 — At the climax of Alex Cox’s Walker (1987), a helicopter descends from the night sky onto a plaza where the colonial buildings are ablaze and an army of mercenaries is disintegrating . . .

Jan 3, 2008 — We’ve received a number of letters recently inquiring about the various versions of Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor. I’ve been immersed in the film for several months now and wanted to clarify a few misconceptions. When I started working on...

Mar 26, 2007 — Across five films, the Swedish director defined his guiding themes and cinematic style.