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Jul 23, 2024 — Chen Kaige’s sweeping epic chronicles the history of twentieth-century China through the story of two childhood friends, contrasting the unchanging traditions of their Beijing-opera milieu with the nation’s swift and turbulent transformation.

Mar 28, 2018 — A touchstone of contemporary independent cinema since its release in 2007, Frownland makes its debut on the Criterion Channel this week. Here’s an excerpt from a new conversation with director Ronald Bronstein.

Mar 25, 2018 — Since our last roundup on new issues, two more publications have each put out another. The new March 2018 issue of Film Criticism opens with Julia Vassilieva’s essay on Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan (2014; image above). “While earlier discussions of the...

Jan 7, 2018 — The updates to the entry on Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread are still rolling in, and one of the most recent ones links to Sheila O'Malley’s cover article for the new issue of Film Comment. “Unlike other clichéd Great Men...

Sep 8, 2017 — “A complex and layered work, [Jonas Mekas’s] Lost Lost Lost [1976]—especially its first hour—is among cinema’s most poignant accounts of the immigrant experience,” writes Girish Shambu. “Historically, the best immigration cinema stages, in an astonishing multitude of ways, a divided...

Dec 11, 2017 — In an episode of the groundbreaking IFC series Split Screen, filmmaker Richard Stanley talks about being fired from the production of notorious box-office bomb The Island of Dr. Moreau.

Jun 10, 2017 — In an excerpt from John Pierson’s irreverent IFC series Split Screen, the fifth installment of which premieres on the Criterion Channel today, Lars von Trier loosens up in front of the camera to explain the impetus behind Dogme 95.

Nov 14, 2016 — Aaron Brookner’s critically acclaimed new documentary Uncle Howard, which features previously unseen footage from Howard Brookner’s 1983 Burroughs: The Movie, opens theatrically at New York’s IFC Center.

Sep 15, 2016 — Need some respite from the twenty-four-hour news cycle? Bill Hader and Fred Armisen’s hysterical IFC Channel series Documentary Now! returns with some comedic salve for our weary election-season souls.

Dec 30, 2015 — Reggie Watts is a multifaceted performer best known for his comedy collaborations and improvisational music sets. After spending several years as the front man for Seattle-based rock group Maktub, Watts began his career as a solo performer in the early...