Interesting Ball

Jun 17, 2025 — Drawing from over a dozen hours of black-and-white footage, Direct Cinema pioneer Charlotte Zwerin created this elliptical and moving portrait of one of American music’s most original artists.

Mar 14, 2025 — Spend the weekend with Buñuel, Pasolini, Sarah Maldoror, Todd Solondz, and Pedro Almodóvar.

Feb 19, 2025 — Gus Van Sant’s lyrical exploration of addiction and faith—adapted from an autobiographical novel by James Fogle—influenced cinematic drug depictions throughout the nineties and helped to initiate a wave of American independent filmmaking.

Oct 18, 2024 — Names in the news this week: Bette Gordon, Robert Frank, Don Hertzfeldt, Alfonso Cuarón, Cate Blanchett, and Quentin Tarantino.

Jun 10, 2024 — The Canadian filmmaker and artist reflects on his award-winning 1996 breakthrough, a work of voluptuous style and fierce political commitment that remains a landmark of New Queer Cinema.

Mar 29, 2022 — About half an hour into love jones, Theodore Witcher’s romance from 1997 starring Larenz Tate and Nia Long, the two main characters amble along a Chicago block as raindrops fall, soft but insistent. The colors are warm, naturalistic—browns, mauves, and...

Jan 31, 2022 — Movies are about looking, and no one involved in the making of a film is more directly responsible for the frames we look at than a cinematographer, or director of photography. Together with the director, the cinematographer shapes the visual...

Jun 22, 2021 — This omnibus documentary captures the remarkable peculiarities of athletic striving in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.

Feb 18, 2021 — We’re reading about Visconti, Fellini, Tom Stoppard, Eartha Kitt, and Anton Walbrook.

Apr 20, 2020 — This month sees new books by and about Woody Allen, Miranda July, and Michael Snow as well as fresh translations and collections of criticism.