In the Shadows

Jul 12, 2017 — New York. A retrospective of films by Alain Tanner opens today at the Metrograph and runs through July 23. Writing for Hyperallergic, Craig Hubert looks back on work Tanner did with the late critic, novelist, painter, and poet John Berger,...

Jul 9, 2017 — New York. “It’s Great to Be Alive may not be the nuttiest Hollywood musical of 1933—a year that brought the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup—but it’s surely the only one to end with a production number in which the women of...

Jun 28, 2017 — New York. “Rapturously received but mysteriously forgotten after its 1964 New York opening, Jacques Becker’s prison drama, Le trou (The Hole), returns, digitally restored, for a week at Film Forum,” begins J. Hoberman in the New York Times. “Becker served...

Jun 27, 2017 — Let’s break the pattern a bit and open today’s entry with the recommended listening first. Karina Longworth’s outstanding podcast You Must Remember This has just returned from a well-deserved hiatus with a new series, “Jean and Jane.” As in Seberg...

May 20, 2017 — “Robin Campillo’s 120 Battements Par Minute [BPM (Beats Per Minute)] is a passionately acted ensemble movie about ACT UP in France in the late 80s, the confrontational direct-action movement which demanded immediate, large-scale research into AIDS,” begins the Guardian’s Peter...

May 2, 2017 — On a trip to the Library of Congress’s Mostly Lost workshop—affectionately known as “film-geek heaven”—Imogen Sara Smith joined early-cinema aficionados in uncovering treasures from the vaults.

Feb 20, 2017 — Joan Crawford delivers one of her greatest performances in Michael Curtiz’s unsparing look at class, ambition, and the all-consuming intensity of maternal love.

Jan 16, 2017 — Jack Garfein’s no-holds-barred account of sexual assault and trauma captures the volatile sensibility of the Actors Studio.

Dec 14, 2016 — Pseudodocumentary collides with pure fantasy in Federico Fellini’s intricately layered portrait of his adopted home.

Sep 21, 2016 — An exhilarating blend of noir and splatter-flick tropes, the Coen brothers’ debut feature established their unique brand of cosmic fatalism.