The Man in the White Suit

Aug 11, 2020 — The Complete Films of Agnès Varda In September 2018, I screened Agnès Varda and JR’s Faces Places for the Michigan State University Film Collective. We had a lively discussion that went past the scheduled ending time. As I was getting...

Jul 13, 2022 — Stylistically informed by film noir, Martin Scorsese’s searing drama plumbs male violence and rage through a boxing champ’s self-destruction.

Mar 24, 2026 — In this true-crime epic, Martin Scorsese combines his career-long exploration of amoral gangsterism with a sobering meditation on what it means to live on American soil.

Jul 25, 2017 — Albert Brooks brings the gift for comic deconstruction he honed in his stand-up career to this uproarious satire of baby boomer values.

Jan 19, 2017 — Rainer Werner Fassbinder plays a working-class gay man hoodwinked by his uppity bourgeois lover in this unsparing portrait of queer culture in 1970s West Germany.

Feb 25, 2025 — Misunderstood on release and mishandled by its distributor, this genuine cult classic opened the door to a radical new way of making films.

May 31, 2022 — Billy Wilder’s classic film noir is a powerful meditation on masculinity, desire, and the fantasies of white America.

Jan 3, 2019 — We look ahead to films by Martin Scorsese, Greta Gerwig, Paul Verhoeven, Hirokazu Kore-eda, and dozens more.

Nov 22, 2022 — Spike Lee’s transcendent portrait of an American hero is an urgent call for the nation to live up to everything it claims to be.

Mar 1, 2022 — The first film I saw at last year’s Morelia International Film Festival opens on the image of a freshly dug grave. Shovelfuls of earth fall into the open pit as two doctors stand above it, lamenting the loss of yet...