As Good As Dead

May 20, 2017 — “If he hadn’t already laid claim to the title of king of the cringe-inducing confrontation and nabob of the nervous laugh with the withering Force Majeure, Ruben Östlund truly anoints himself with The Square, an excoriating razor-burn of a movie...

May 19, 2017 — “Kornél Mundruczó’s Jupiter’s Moon is a messily ambitious and over-extended movie with some great images,” writes the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw: “[L]ike his previous picture White God it leaves behind the somewhat torpid realist mannerisms of his even earlier films such...

May 17, 2017 — “For its 70th anniversary,” begins Boyd van Hoeij in the Hollywood Reporter, “the Cannes Film Festival has, very appropriately, chosen to open with a film by French auteur Arnaud Desplechin, a Cannes discovery whose feature debut, The Sentinel, played in...

Mar 21, 2017 — A “celluloid atrocity” overflowing with deviant shenanigans, John Waters’s low-budget satire makes mincemeat of the peace-and-love era.

Mar 1, 2017 — In his most seductive experiment with cinematic time, Richard Linklater wrestles with the joys and challenges of long-term intimacy.

Feb 20, 2017 — Joan Crawford delivers one of her greatest performances in Michael Curtiz’s unsparing look at class, ambition, and the all-consuming intensity of maternal love.

Feb 5, 2017 — Kirsten Johnson interrogates the thorny ethics of nonfiction filmmaking in her intriguingly elliptical blend of essay, travelogue, and memoir.

Dec 6, 2016 — This elegiac meditation on impermanence showcases Laurie Anderson’s playfully experimental approach to sound and image.

Nov 15, 2016 — Akira Kurosawa lays bare his deepest fears in this visually astonishing interpretation of folklore, myth, and the director’s own dreams and memories.

Oct 31, 2016 — In her latest column, critic Imogen Sara Smith explores landmark moments in the intersection of noir and the western, including Marlon Brando’s One-Eyed Jacks.