Companion

Jun 24, 2014 — In 1964, Richard Lester harnessed the Beatles’ exploding superstardom for a giddy day-in-the-life pop masterpiece.

Jun 19, 2014 — PerformancesTime has added some latter-day ironies to All That Heaven Allows, and not just the revelation that its star Rock Hudson was gay. There’s also the political career of Ronald Reagan, the ex-husband of Hudson’s costar, Jane Wyman—built on the...

Mar 24, 2014 — Rome is as exquisite as it is suffocating in Paolo Sorrentino’s profound tale of contemporary entropy.

Jan 21, 2014 — Bigger is better in Stanley Kramer’s crazily crammed slapstick epic, a timeless showcase for comedy genius.

Oct 24, 2013 — In John Cassavetes’s personal cinema, the director was always trying to break away from the formulas of Hollywood narrative, in order to uncover some fugitive truth about the way people behave. At the same time, he took seriously his responsibilities...

Sep 24, 2013 — Marketed as a movie of volcanic passion, Roberto Rossellini’s first film with Ingrid Bergman is rather a pragmatic take on the negotiations of matrimony.

Dec 6, 2011 — One of the delights of Alfred Hitchcock’s comic thriller is the wit with which it pins down a distinctly British insular mindset.

Aug 24, 2011 — bonne femme, à la [bohn FEHM, bohn FAM]Literally translated as “good wife,” the term bonne femme describes food prepared in an uncomplicated, homey manner. Sole bonne femme is a simply poached fish served with a sauce of white wine and...

Jul 25, 2011 — A fearless tragicomedy about hope, dread, longing, and forgiveness, Life During Wartime (2010) is Todd Solondz’s boldest and most haunting movie to date, carrying his exploration of Middle American malaise into new territory. As before, he probes the dreams, dissatisfactions,...

Jun 10, 2011 — Bringing Junichiro Tanizaki’s sprawling, elegiac histor­ical novel The Makioka Sisters (1948) to the screen would seem an undertaking tailor-made for Kon Ichikawa. The renowned writer’s work was familiar territory for the veteran director, who had adapted the quirky Tanizaki novella...