The Disco

Nov 27, 2006 — Centered on the destruction wrought by unbridled female eros, Pandora’s Box would, in its shockingly modern, instinct-driven psychology, end up defining both its director and its star.

Oct 16, 2006 — Lodge Kerrigan’s grim, lucid dispatch from the murky depths of madness situates itself inside the tormented consciousness of a schizophrenic.

Oct 16, 2006 — Screenwriter Carlos Cuarón delves into the character played by Claudia Ramírez

Jun 19, 2006 — This essay originally appeared in the fanzine PHOTON (issue #22), in 1972. Stop-motion animation has been attracting a growing number of enthusiasts for about the last ten years, and though it seems the majority of these people must out of...

Nov 15, 2004 — Short Cuts is an L.A. jazz rhapsody that represents Robert Altman at an all-time personal peak—and it came at just the right time in his career.

Apr 19, 2004 — “Floating weeds, drifting down the leisurely river of our lives,” has long been a favored metaphor in Japanese prose and poetry. This plant, the ukigusa (duckweed in English), floating aimlessly, carried by stronger currents, is seen as emblematic of our...

Feb 23, 2004 — With his drama about a Sicilian bandit, Francesco Rosi developed the style and method that would make him, during the sixties and seventies, the greatest political filmmaker of his time.

Sep 23, 2002 — The theatricality of Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller makes the point that psychoanalysis is a sister to cinema rather than a rival.

Aug 19, 2002 — Ronald Neame’s dramedy has the distinction of being the only “feel-good” realistic spy film ever made, walking a fine line between topicality and escapism.

Dec 16, 1991 — Lady for a Day represented a watershed in the career of Frank Capra. The young director had been laboring at Columbia Pictures’ Poverty Row Studio, churning out 18 films in less than six years. He had moved from low-budget programmers...