In America

Oct 7, 2015 — It’s night in the desert. Mike (River Phoenix), a teenage hustler given to bouts of narcolepsy, and Scott (Keanu Reeves), a slumming preppy prince, are huddled over a campfire. “I just want to kiss you, man,” says Mike softly. The...

May 19, 2015 — Charlie Chaplin’s intensely emotional drama is a dream film about show business, history, and death.

May 7, 2015 — Movie comedies about moviemaking through the decades

Oct 22, 2013 — The disc of Faces that you now hold is the most beautiful copy possible of a film that was meant to look lousy. Digital technology painstakingly reproduces John Cassavetes’s lighting, which allowed his actors to move about freely, and so...

Mar 29, 2013 — When the world’s favorite comedian asked his audience to see him as a sociopathic serial killer, he was venturing where cinema had barely dared to tread.

Mar 1, 2012 — Louis Malle’s God’s Country is a remarkable account of one hamlet in the heartland of the United States—Glencoe, Minnesota—as seen first in 1979 and then again in 1985. Malle was fascinated by what he saw as a very American brand...

Sep 13, 2011 — Robert Altman’s spellbinding drama about stolen identities is propelled by evanescent reveries of his own and inventive contributions from cast and crew.

A founder of Italian neorealism, this Italian master brought to filmmaking a documentary-like authenticity and philosophical stringency that came to define modern cinema.

Feb 2, 2011 — These tributes first appeared in the winter 2010 issue of Brick, a literary journal based in Toronto. They are posted here by permission of the authors. The photographs appear courtesy of Colleen Murphy.   Colleen Murphy After we decided to...

Jan 18, 2011 — By 1963, when he started filming Shock Corridor on a rented soundstage, Samuel Fuller had come ruefully and puckishly to view himself as a “Lindy,” a diminutive for Charles Lindbergh designating a prostitute who, like the famous aviator, operates solo,...