It Was Always You

May 19, 2008 — Top fashion models bleeding from sharp-edged aluminum dresses. A comic-strip American superhero oozing stigmata. A naked couple electrically zapped for the delectation of the TV-viewing public. These are some of the images from the fiction films of American expatriate in...

Apr 21, 2008 — There’s an irony to the fact that Japanese master filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu lived his life as a bachelor, for he made some of the world’s most insightful, lived-in, and emotionally authentic films about marriage and parenthood.

Jan 21, 2008 — As late as 1970, Alf Sjöberg’s boldly experimental 1951 adaptation of August Strindberg’s play was declared as inaugurating “a new cinematic language.”

Sep 3, 2007 — I’m on a flight back from the Telluride Film Festival and two and a half great days in the mountains. Telluride has been an important festival for Criterion and Janus for years. It’s a great opportunity to mingle with filmmakers...

Aug 14, 2007 — When I found out last year that we’d be working on Days of Heaven, I got goose bumps. It’s always been one of my favorite films, and I had wished it could be in the Criterion Collection ever since I...

Feb 12, 2007 — Bicycle Thieves is truly one of my favorite films. I could watch it over and over again, and in truth, I have.

Jan 22, 2007 — A delightfully old-fashioned morality tale, Robert Day’s low-budget space flick is far more than the standard monster fare it was initially sold as.

Dec 4, 2006 — I had said that I was going to write about growing up with a projector in my attic, and Peter’s writing about home last week brought back some memories. Movies were cool. In the late sixties, my father would bring...

Nov 13, 2006 — There’s a store called Stew Leonard’s near where I live. When you walk in, you can see the customer service rules hanging above the entrance. It’s simple—there are only two: Rule one: The customer is always right; Rule two: When...

May 22, 2006 — Luis Buñuel’s merciless satire concerns the smallness of our vision of progress and our narrow attempts to achieve it through rational or moralistic planning.