Status Update

May 20, 2017 — “If he hadn’t already laid claim to the title of king of the cringe-inducing confrontation and nabob of the nervous laugh with the withering Force Majeure, Ruben Östlund truly anoints himself with The Square, an excoriating razor-burn of a movie...

May 19, 2017 — “Although the word ‘overkill’ can be used to describe practically any of Takashi Miike’s films,” begins Maggie Lee in Variety, “in some ways, the director’s brutal, 2½-hour sword-fight fantasy Blade of the Immortal takes the notion to another level. For...

Jan 17, 2012 — “I felt they showed more of me than they’d said they were going to,” Catherine Deneuve remarked to Pascal Bonitzer in 2004, about the making of Luis Buñuel’s 1967 Belle de jour. “There were moments when I felt totally used....

Apr 18, 2011 — An Eagle for an Emperor, a Gyrfalcon for a King;   a Peregrine for a Prince, a Saker for a Knight, a Merlin for a Lady;   a Goshawk for a Yeoman, a Sparrowhawk for a Priest,   a Musket...

May 20, 2010 — Driven to Destruction Nagisa Oshima was a destructive force in Japanese cinema—and he wouldn’t have had it any other way. Intent on exploding taboos and jabbing the eye of the status quo, he created films that leave us with a...

Mar 25, 2024 — What makes a “bad” movie anyway? By surveying the bombs, disasters, and secret masterpieces (dis)honored at the Golden Raspberry Awards, we can learn much about American cinema’s prevailing standards of taste.

Feb 21, 2024 — Combining the influence of the wuxia genre, the Hong Kong New Wave filmmaking of the 1980s, and loony comic-book futurism, these two ass-kicking fantasias are dazzling showcases of female physicality.

Oct 24, 2023 — The season brings Barbra Streisand’s memories, the “joyously vulgar” Burton and Taylor, and the story of Siskel and Ebert.

Oct 26, 2022 — Deep Dives Every elliptical pleasure of Michael Laughlin’s Strange Behavior (a.k.a. Dead Kids, 1981)—the flattened post–Twilight Zone affect, the tableaux evoking Technicolor footage faded like old Polaroids, a host of cross-pollinated genre kinks—suggests outmoded code that’s been surreptitiously updated. Embracing...

Mar 22, 2022 — This month’s roundup opens with news of forthcoming titles on the work of Pasolini, Kubrick, Sofia Coppola, and Bong Joon Ho.