People Will Talk

Jun 29, 2022 — A fresh round on biographies and studies of filmmakers and actors as well as a few novel ideas and critical collections.

Jan 22, 2021 — List-topping westerns, color-drenched musicals, and rule-breaking documentaries are in the news this week.

Jan 12, 2021 — In the course of selling or promoting a film, a director will invariably be asked, “What’s this movie really about?” The desired answer is usually predetermined—marketers want a concise, two-sentence hook; reporters want a sound bite; critics want a thesis...

May 28, 2019 — Songbook Some songs are so beautiful that it takes six or seven or fifty listens before you really hear the words. High on the list of the greatest American songwriters, Jerome Kern crafted many such melodies: perfect enough to momentarily...

Jun 1, 2018 — The San Francisco Silent Film Festival is on through the weekend. Plus, Louise Brooks in the UK and Anna May Wong in Berlin.

Apr 9, 2018 — Ingrid Bergman’s work in her native Sweden was an early showcase for her dazzlingly precocious talent and emotional depth.

Jul 28, 2017 — A new 4K restoration of James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), converted to 3D, is heading to theaters on August 25. Now James Wigney of the New Corp Australia Network reports that “Cameron says he is in negotiations to...

Sep 27, 2016 — This monumental meditation on the Ten Commandments captures the spiritual undercurrents of life in late-Communist Poland.

Jul 6, 2011 — Cinephilia was the buzzword at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about that, of course, but the 2011 edition (the festival’s sixty-fifth—it’s the oldest continuously running film festival in the world), which ran from...

May 19, 2021 — The actor, writer, and talk show regular will be remembered as an “uncommonly intense and all-around uncommon performer.”