Thank You, Life

Nov 10, 2020 — In the half-light of the opening shot of Girlfriends, a woman asks, “What are you doing?” and another responds, “Go back to sleep.” You could dismiss this as a bit of passing dialogue—or you could see in it a larger...

Aug 31, 2020 — Documentaries lead the charge this month on the Criterion Channel, with a wide-ranging offering of nonfiction films as formally imaginative and emotionally riveting as any scripted drama.

May 11, 2020 — One Scene Over the course of four features and several shorts, Brooklyn-based documentary filmmaker Matt Wolf has mined the histories hidden in archives, stitching together a rich and complicated view of twentieth-century America. He’s drawn to subjects that are misunderstood...

Jan 20, 2020 — In celebration of Federico Fellini’s 100th birthday, the director of The Farewell talks about the deeply moving final scene of Nights of Cabiria and its mixture of pain and hope.

Jul 23, 2018 — Venice will present a lifetime achievement award to Vanessa Redgrave, and Venice Days announces its lineup.

Feb 23, 2018 — “Eighteen years young and still eagerly nudging audiences toward discovery, Film Comment Selects is a film series as pointed act of correction,” writes Ed Gonzalez at the top of his overview in the Village Voice of the series opening today...

Sep 11, 2017 — In this documentary portrait of the Newport Folk Festival, Murray Lerner captured seismic changes in American music and politics.

Aug 7, 2017 — The big news to catch up with here is the launch of Film Critic: Adrian Martin, “almost 20 years, on and off, in the making.” Adrian Martin has been writing essential film criticism for four decades now, and what’s collected...

Apr 5, 2017 — At eighty-eight years old, Agnès Varda is still blossoming as an artist. Long known primarily as a filmmaker, a vocation she took up more than half a century ago, the French iconoclast is now in what she gleefully describes as...

Jan 30, 2017 — Film scholar Shonni Enelow reveals the methods of the Mamet style of acting in this examination of Crouse’s subtly feminist lead performance.