Hard Times

Mar 6, 2020 — Above photo: © Chuck Stewart Photography, LLCIn America, black musical genius has never been in short supply, though it hasn’t always been recognized or fairly compensated. Even a casual glance at the résumé of formally trained composer, producer, and arranger...

Mar 3, 2020 — Mohammad Rasoulof has won the Berlinale’s Golden Bear, and Eliza Hittman is taking home the grand jury prize.

Feb 26, 2020 — Karel Zeman belonged to an obsessive fringe fellowship of moviemakers that stretched right back to the medium’s first formative days—a lineage of auteurs who believed in cinema as a full-blown daydream machine, capable of realizing inhabitable fantasias. These were filmmakers—practical-effects...

Feb 25, 2020 — In these times of Trumpidation, thirty years after its auspicious release, Paris Is Burning seems even more relevant than it did in early 1991, when I wrote the following for Black Film Review about Jennie Livingston’s phenomenal documentary on New...

Feb 18, 2020 — From the making of Chinatown, through fresh memoirs and ongoing biographies, here’s this month’s overview of new and noteworthy titles.

Jan 24, 2020 — All six feet two of Burt Lancaster is spread out next to Deborah Kerr as they kiss each other on the beach in From Here to Eternity (1953). This is one of the most famous movie love scenes, parodied and copied many...

Jan 23, 2020 — The return of Miranda July, a first feature from Garrett Bradley, and a new doc from Kirsten Johnson are a few of this year’s most anticipated features.

Jan 7, 2020 — Understudies everywhere should take heart at the tale of Katharine Hepburn’s long history with the role of Linda Seton, the high-spirited but reclusive heiress she plays in George Cukor’s 1938 Holiday. When the Philip Barry play the film is based...

Jan 3, 2020 — This week we’ve been reading about Orson Welles, Nina Menkes, Martin Scorsese, Luc Moullet, and the late Robert Frank.

Jan 3, 2020 — The director of Margaret and Manchester by the Sea celebrates Hollywood’s greatest humanist, whose films are featured in a series now playing on the Criterion Channel.