Spartacus

Essays

Apr 23, 2001 Of all the actors to try their hand at producing, Kirk Douglas may have been the most audacious. Spartacus illustrates his taste for unorthodox material, and the story behind the making of the movie reveals a great deal about Douglas’...

Apr 23, 2001 In 1955, Jules Dassin, an American director in exile in Paris, made this flat-out perfect piece of cinema. The film came as a redemption for Dassin: a one-time promising young director cranking out B-movies under an MGM contract ("They were...

Jan 29, 2001 Masahiro Shinoda’s historical drama uses traditional elements of Japanese theater to explore the tension between ethics and eroticism.

Dec 18, 2000 Elegant humor cloaks despair in Luis Buñuel’s masterwork, wherein greedy characters flee their toxic lives and find refuge in the loneliness of dreams.

Nov 13, 2000 All the opening bands had finished playing, and it was time for the Stones to come out. The sun was still out and there was plenty of daylight left. The crowd had waited all day to see the Stones perform,...

The Blob

Essays

Nov 13, 2000 Featuring what may be the only 1950s monster that could not be destroyed, this cult classic warns parents to listen to their kids because the world they understood and controlled is over.

Oct 30, 2000 Perry Henzell’s reggae-infused outlaw film reflects the political climate of the times, when anti-government movements were sweeping America and the world.

Sisters

Essays

Oct 2, 2000 The most important of Brian De Palma’s earlier features, Greetings (1968) and Hi, Mom! (1970), resist the commodification of entertainment while charting the development of Jon Rubin (Robert De Niro) from voyeur to filmmaker to urban guerilla. If pictures like...

Hamlet

Essays

Sep 18, 2000 Reviewing Laurence Olivier’s 1948 film of Hamlet, James Agee—then a critic at Time—wrote: “The man who brings Hamlet, his friends, and his antagonists to life has tackled one of the most fascinating and most thankless tasks in show business. ....

Sep 18, 2000 Drenched in mud and rain, Lars von Trier’s breakthrough film inhabits a true twilight zone, bereft of heroes and integrity.

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