Blood Simple

Mar 16, 2020 — This month we’re reading about Helen Scott, a liaison between Paris and Hollywood; Anna Karina’s novels; William Faulkner’s screenplays; and more.

Jul 8, 2019 — Ben Barenholtz and Milos Stehlik helped shape the tastes of generations of cinephiles.

Jul 30, 2017 — “Everybody knows what’s wrong with Hollywood—the vacuous parade of tentpole blockbusters; the refusal to diversify both in front of and behind the camera; the confusion in the face of disruptions by Netflix and Amazon; the single-minded lust for the 13-year-old-male...

Jan 19, 2016 — Inside Llewyn Davis takes its protagonist on a Hero’s Journey of characteristically Coen-esque proportions—a voyage at turns serious and comic, and framed by an exquisitely curated selection of folk melodies.

Jun 13, 2012 — Tasteful British cinema got a refreshing dose of amorality with Danny Boyle’s stylish and violent tale of greed and paranoia.

Jul 27, 2010 — Americans got The Secret of the Grain. In France, they got La graine et le mulet (The Grain and the Mullet)—basically, “Couscous and Fish.” Depending on whose table you eat dinner at, the French title can seem as elemental as...

Jan 9, 2019 — There’s a certain tall-tale quality to Sandi Tan’s life. When the California-based filmmaker was growing up in Singapore in the 1980s and ’90s, movies were a powerful way of experiencing the world beyond her small native country, a place she...

Apr 10, 2017 — An exhibition at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image explores Martin Scorsese’s creative process, his deep personal connection to his films, and his lifelong cinephilia.

Dec 23, 2019 — Fear and desire lie at the heart of Peter Strickland’s cinema, whether he’s exploring those themes through the sonic, the sexual, the sartorial, or some diabolical combination of all three. With his masterful sense of film technique, the British director...

Dec 7, 2010 — In 1981, it seemed to me that a new era of fantastic cinema was upon us.