2020

May 29, 2020 — This week we’re learning about one of the world’s first tracking shots and catching up with Guy Maddin, Lewis Klahr, Sarah Cooper, and Steve Buscemi.

May 27, 2020 — Twenty-one festivals from around the world contribute to the eclectic lineup of the free We Are One: A Global Film Festival.

May 18, 2020 — It’s hard to imagine Hollywood without Frances Marion. The story of the screenwriter’s career is entwined with the story of Hollywood itself, from its pioneer days to the Golden Age. Part of Marion’s skill as a writer was how her...

May 14, 2020 — Sorely missing the festival this year, filmmakers and critics swap memories and reflections.

May 11, 2020 — This week’s round comes loaded with lists: 100 novels about cinema, fifty novelizations, and dozens of Sheila O’Malley’s favorite biographies.

May 8, 2020 — The opening and closing credits in a film are a form of housekeeping, fulfilling a legal obligation to compile the names of cast and crew who made the final product possible. Visionary designer Saul Bass saw the aesthetic potential in...

May 7, 2020 — A new memoir occasions a couple of profiles in which the actor spins a few tales many of us may find challenging to deal with.

May 6, 2020 — What if the Hollywood of the 1940s were less racist and homophobic than the America of the 1940s?

May 4, 2020 — “You’ve never seen prairie grass with the wind leaning on it, have you, Diz?”Jean Arthur asks this poetic, expressively peculiar question of Thomas Mitchell in Frank Capra’s 1939 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and we understand her yearning for truth...

Apr 30, 2020 — Festivals scheduled through August are taking their editions online, while studios and theater chains face off over digital releases. Here’s the latest on the impact of the virus.