The Criterion Collection
Apr 17, 2013 — Four of the great Japanese director’s lesser-known, early films show the coming into being of a political artist.
Apr 16, 2013 — With its idiosyncratic humor, killer soundtrack, and middle finger to Reagan-era politics, Alex Cox’s film was the perfect cult hit for the golden age of the video store.
Whether faithful adaptations or daring reimaginings, these are films that deserve to be appreciated alongside their printed progenitors.
Apr 10, 2013 — Teinosuke Kinugasa’s landmark color film is a visual feast that has finally been vibrantly restored.
Essays
Apr 9, 2013 — This essay by novelist, playwright, and culture critic Gary Indiana originally appeared in the 1992 book Everything Is Permitted: The Making of “Naked Lunch.” Burroughs’s work tends to affect people like a Rorschach test. It separates cultural conservatives from avant-gardists,...
Apr 9, 2013 — This review by film critic Janet Maslin originally appeared in the December 27, 1991, edition of the New York Times, and appears by permission of the author. Naked Lunch, adapted by the dauntless David Cronenberg from William S. Burroughs’s 1959...
Short Takes
Apr 5, 2013 — We will miss our friend Roger Ebert, who died yesterday at age seventy. In honor of this very special man and most beloved and influential of film critics, we would like to share with you the first four minutes of...
Production Notes
Apr 4, 2013 — 1. Director Robert Bresson originally titled his screenplay Aide-toi . . ., a reference to the French expression “Aide-toi et le ciel t’aidera” (“Heaven helps those who help themselves”). He ultimately decided instead to use the title Devigny’s journalistic account of his...
In Theaters
Apr 3, 2013 — A new documentary profile of a great raconteur, titled André Gregory: Before and After Dinner and directed by Cindy Kleine, opens today at New York’s Film Forum. In it, Gregory delves into his past, including his fraught relationship with his...
Mar 29, 2013 — When the world’s favorite comedian asked his audience to see him as a sociopathic serial killer, he was venturing where cinema had barely dared to tread.