The Academy of Magic

Sep 17, 2024 — With grisly special-effects showcases, some of cinema’s most memorable witches, Japanese horror classics, and spine-tingling Stephen King adaptations all on deck, there’s plenty to choose from for your spooky-season viewing.

Jul 28, 2017 — One of the wittiest chroniclers of modern American life, Albert Brooks talks with filmmaker Robert Weide about how he arrived at the concept for Lost in America. Also: a few words from James L. Brooks.

Mar 24, 2017 — Capturing the cultural anxieties of the 1970s, Hal Ashby’s comedic parable explores the pitfalls of innocence and credulity in American politics.

Apr 1, 2015 — Ingmar Bergman plumbs unfathomable depths in his cinematically sensual tale of four women facing the inevitable in mind and body.

Nov 16, 2021 — Tsui Hark’s epic martial-arts saga revolutionized Hong Kong cinema by presenting a complex portrait of modern Chinese history and setting a gold standard in action choreography.

Feb 26, 2019 — The trailblazing African American director Charles Burnett’s third feature, To Sleep with Anger (1990), was his biggest production to date, albeit still made on a modest budget of $1.4 million, a significant portion of which was raised through the attachment...

Aug 22, 2024 — This year, Bologna’s annual feast of restorations and rediscoveries showcased one of the most ambitious masterpieces of the silent era, the melodramas of Japanese filmmaker Kozaburo Yoshimura, and other treasures of film history.

Nov 22, 2021 — Songbook Tootsie is a film about love and desire. Audiences are prone to forgetting this amid the controversies that have arisen around its gender-crossing conceit. Back in 1982, the film emerged as one of the decade’s prestige comedies: it was...

Oct 7, 2013 — René Clair, Fredric March, and Veronica Lake cast sensational spells in this screwball supernatural treat.

Jun 11, 2015 — The author recalls the two great cinematographers and their work.