Almost a Comedy

Nov 19, 2020 — This month, we’re sorting through new books featuring—for starters—Jean-Luc Godard, Marguerite Duras, Billy Wilder, Geraldine Chaplin, and Harmony Korine.

Sep 1, 2020 — It’s not impossible to be a lazy, shrug-it-off filmmaker, just as it isn’t to be a lazy painter or novelist, or, more to the point, a lazy comic artist, drawing each picture merely once and then moving on. (You could...

Jun 24, 2020 — It was audiences, not critics, that made hits out of such movies as St. Elmo’s Fire (1985), Batman Forever (1995), and Phone Booth (2002).

Aug 20, 2019 — For the past twelve months I’ve been re-plunging into Ingmar Bergman. It began with a conference in Lund, Sweden, in June of 2018, to mark the centennial of his birth; numerous experts, among them contributors to Criterion’s mammoth edition last...

Apr 3, 2019 — This month’s round features Dalí’s Marx Brothers movie, Bergman family drama, Welles’s unpublished play, and more.

Mar 12, 2019 — The first few days have also seen premieres of new films by Lynn Shelton, Jonathan Levine, and Olivia Wilde.

Jan 25, 2019 — Retrospectives in New York and Glasgow offer opportunities to catch up with or revisit the work of an outstanding director of comedies.

Dec 29, 2018 — Polls and ballots, lists and considered reflections give shape to the year that was.

May 17, 2018 — The Los Angeles noir starring Andrew Garfield is met with mixed reviews.

May 8, 2018 — In his uncharacteristic final masterpiece, the great Hollywood melodramatist Frank Borzage approaches the shadowy violence of film noir with his unique brand of romanticism.