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Dec 18, 2015 — Howard Brookner’s 1983 documentary Burroughs: The Movie, now out on Blu-ray and DVD, offers an unparalleled glimpse into the life of legendary author William S. Burroughs. Brookner began filming in 1978 and spent nearly five years documenting the Beat Generation...

Dec 14, 2015 — In the early 1960s, Agnès Varda traveled to Cuba to make the documentary Salut les Cubains (1963). Varda’s twenty-eight-minute film, composed almost entirely of photographs that captured Cuba’s vibrant postrevolutionary culture, was inspired by two of Chris Marker’s films—Varda took...

Dec 11, 2015 — With his singular and unwavering style, Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu disregarded the established rules of cinema and created a visual language all his own. Precise compositions, contemplative pacing, low camera angles, and elliptical storytelling are just some of the signature...

Dec 8, 2015 — The Sundance Film Festival’s 2016 documentary premieres lineup, announced yesterday, will feature Richard Linklater—dream is destiny, the directorial debut of Louis Black.

Dec 8, 2015 — In Speedy, Harold Lloyd, a comic genius who thought of himself as a quintessentially average American man, places his optimistic everyman character within the context of a society in shift, to great comedic effect.

Dec 3, 2015 — Repertory PicksIn advance of the upcoming release of Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, The Hateful Eight, Chicago’s Music Box Theatre will host a week-long series called Tarantino & Friends that begins tomorrow and includes a selection of films that influenced the...

Dec 1, 2015 — Critic Todd McCarthy takes an inside look at Michael Ritchie's outdoor drama, which he calls “spare, cut to the bone, as fine as dry powder. Had Hemingway ever written about competitive skiing, this would have been the right style with...

Nov 24, 2015 — Our new release of In Cold Blood, Richard Brooks’s chilling 1967 true-crime masterpiece, features an interview with film critic and jazz historian Gary Giddins, who offers a wonderfully illuminating examination of legendary record producer Quincy Jones’s music for the film....

Nov 24, 2015 — In Dont Look Back, legendary documentary filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker employs his revolutionary new camera and Direct Cinema style to capture the multiple essences and contradictions of a young Bob Dylan making his way across England in 1965.

Nov 19, 2015 — Satyajit Ray’s long-heralded cinematic achievement was influenced by European cinema but also grew out of long-standing Indian artistic tradition.