The Catch

Feb 28, 2018 — A few days ago, we ran an essay here by Pico Iyer on Satyajit Ray’s The Hero (1966), followed by Meheli Sen’s comments on Uttam Kumar’s performance within the context of his stardom. Iyer has more to say and, writing...

Jan 2, 2018 — New York. “Starting in the mid-1960s, Michelangelo Antonioni became what the German essayist Hans Magnus Enzensberger would call a ‘tourist of the revolution,’” writes J. Hoberman in the New York Times. “Antonioni left Italy to make Blow-Up (1966) in swinging...

Dec 12, 2017 — “Grant Munro, a Winnipeg filmmaker whom the National Film Board calls a ‘Canadian film and animation legend,’ has died at the age of ninety-four,” reports Debra Yeo for the Toronto Star. Munro is probably best known for appearing in Norman...

Oct 3, 2017 — New York. Paul Schrader’s First Reformed (reviews from Venice and Toronto) has been added to the lineup of the ongoing New York Film Festival as a Special Event. There’ll be a single screening on Friday evening.Lucrecia Martel, whose Zama is part of the festival’s Main Slate,...

Sep 5, 2017 — “If the only thing we wanted, or expected, a horror film to do was to get a rise out of you—to make your eyes widen and your jaw drop, to leave you in breathless chortling spasms of WTF disbelief—then Darren...

Jun 26, 2013 — On the life and work of the famous Czech author, and the pleasures and challenges of translating him.

Apr 22, 2013 — Restoration SpotlightShot in VistaVision and Technicolor, Richard III is the most eye-catching of Laurence Olivier’s essential big-screen Shakespeare adaptations. For years, it couldn’t be seen in its original glory, due to lost footage, faded colors, chemical staining, and missing frames....

Mar 26, 2013 — Charlie Chaplin manages to make a ruthless murderer likable in his brilliant satire of middle-class morality.

Oct 17, 2011 — Scratch the surface of a contemporary J-horror classic like Ringu (1998) or any of the Ju-on films (2000–03) and you’ll glimpse Yabu no naka no kuroneko (Black Cat from the Grove), released in the U.S. as simply Kuroneko (1968). Shot...

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...