Pioneer

Dec 20, 2017 — During the silent era, Hollywood’s approach to narrative structure was rapidly evolving. But while dramas were soon employing complex plot devices and lengthier running times, comedies lagged behind, focusing mainly on episodic slapstick. That changed when pioneers such as Charlie...

Dec 12, 2017 — “Grant Munro, a Winnipeg filmmaker whom the National Film Board calls a ‘Canadian film and animation legend,’ has died at the age of ninety-four,” reports Debra Yeo for the Toronto Star. Munro is probably best known for appearing in Norman...

Nov 20, 2017 — Director Donna Deitch shares her stories of casting and directing Desert Hearts with one of the film’s biggest fans, Jane Lynch.

Nov 14, 2017 — Donna Deitch combined tropes of lesbian pulp romance with the sheen of mainstream filmmaking in her beloved debut feature.

Nov 8, 2017 — Dave Kehr’s long reviews for the Chicago Reader, published between 1974 and 1986, comprise “a body of work that, together with Kehr’s columns for Chicago magazine in the 1980s, strikes me as being the most remarkable extended stretch of auteurist...

Oct 24, 2017 — New York. The Anthology Film Archives’ series Boxing on Film: Part 2 is on through October 31, and William Klein’s Muhammad Ali, The Greatest (1974), screening once more on Saturday, “evades fight footage and instead alights upon the press appearances...

Oct 19, 2017 — New York. “Feverish, fragmented, expressionistic, The Sin of Nora Moran (1933) is one of the most formally daring films to come out of Hollywood in the early sound era,” begins Imogen Sara Smith in her overview for Film Comment of...

Oct 3, 2017 — New York. Paul Schrader’s First Reformed (reviews from Venice and Toronto) has been added to the lineup of the ongoing New York Film Festival as a Special Event. There’ll be a single screening on Friday evening.Lucrecia Martel, whose Zama is part of the festival’s Main Slate,...

Sep 25, 2017 — New York. From October 12 through 26, the Metrograph will present Philippe Garrel: Part 1, the first half of the most complete retrospective ever to be staged in the U.S. I’m flagging this event early not only because the New...

Sep 22, 2017 — New York. Ben Kenigsberg flags three items in the Times, starting with Art House Theater Day, “a day in which cinemas across the United States and Canada will offer special programming in a show of celebration.” In New York, Thelma...