The Last Laugh

Jul 21, 2025 — Summer offers new biographies and memoirs, expansively big ideas, and more than a few curious fictions.

Sep 19, 2023 — Warmly received in Venice, Cooper’s portrait of Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre now heads to festivals in New York, Zurich, London, Mill Valley, and Los Angeles.

Feb 11, 2020 — How might four history-making Oscars impact movies from here on out?

Oct 5, 2017 — For kicks, I’m opening this one with something I wrote myself back in February, just hours after seeing the film at the Berlinale: “Aki Kaurismäki’s uneven but irresistibly amusing The Other Side of Hope, dedicated to the late film historian...

Jun 21, 2022 — Two eras of Hong Kong history collide in this exquisite ghost story, which solidified director Stanley Kwan’s status as one of cinema’s truest romantics.

Apr 27, 2026 — During the evening rush on a busy Los Angeles boulevard, a man steps into a news-vendor’s stall and scans the out-of-town papers section, where journals offer balm for homesick travelers and transplants. But his hometown, Evanston, Illinois, is missing—no call...

Jan 9, 2026 — The director of some of the bleakest films ever made once claimed all they were all comedies—except one.

Nov 25, 2020 — A talk with Claudia Weill, a new issue of Cineaste, and an appreciation of playback singer Asha Bhosle are among this week’s highlights.

May 11, 2015 — The poignancy of Leo McCarey's tearjerker is due as much to the director's scrupulous aesthetic choices as his unforgettable characters and story.

Jun 22, 2010 — Sitting on a hard drive here in the office is the unedited footage of an interview we shot here with Peter Brunette on April 26, for an upcoming release of Senso. The release had been delayed, but I told Peter that since...