Heroes of the East

Feb 22, 2011 — It wasn’t intended. No one could have predicted it. But Sweet Smell of Success turned out to be a terminus where several movie genres and subgenres converged and curdled, producing a uniquely delicious perfume of everlasting cynicism. Inhale deeply. And...

Nov 26, 2025 — This short week brings writing on Wong Kar Wai’s first series and Kubrick’s and Pasolini’s last features.

Feb 27, 2024 — Hollywood legend Raoul Walsh’s first movie for Warner Bros. is an epoch-spanning tall tale that takes inspiration from the New York City of his childhood and closes out a run of influential gangster films he inaugurated in the silent era.

Dec 19, 2025 — This week: Kubrick conspiracies, Malickian movies, Spike Lee’s musical moments, and a talk with Rebecca Hall.

Mar 3, 2025 — His range was astounding, and yet every performance was immediately recognizable as uniquely his.

Aug 6, 2021 — At a perilous moment in the history of the western, a series of films by Budd Boetticher and Randolph Scott stood out for their no-nonsense lucidity.

Apr 16, 2019 — Most proper New Waves of the 1960s came equipped with a rough balance of assimilable superstars and genuine radicals, and for the Czechoslovaks, the guerrilla flank was led by Jan Němec. Jiří Menzel was adored globally for his wry humor,...

Jun 12, 2012 — Hal Ashby’s delicately off-kilter May-December romance stars two of the unlikeliest countercultural icons of the seventies.

Nov 25, 2010 — Five Easy Pieces is not a statement about America but a closely observed report. Or, perhaps, a confession.

Oct 24, 2019 — A retrospective in Vienna focuses on the guerrilla heroes of partisan cinema.