Stories We Tell

Mar 25, 2024 — What makes a “bad” movie anyway? By surveying the bombs, disasters, and secret masterpieces (dis)honored at the Golden Raspberry Awards, we can learn much about American cinema’s prevailing standards of taste.

Nov 10, 2023 — Black mothers’ stories come around again, Matt Wolf probes the archives, and Lizzie Borden conjures the streets of mid-1980s New York.

May 10, 2023 — The critic and memoirist expands on her 2017 essay “What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?”

Jul 29, 2022 — We head back to the 1940s in Los Angeles, the 1960s in New York and Paris, and to every summer you remember.

Jul 15, 2022 — This week we head back to 1981 with Reverse Shot, to the 1970s with Straub-Huillet, and to the 1960s with Marco Bellocchio.

Apr 9, 2021 — A round on the origins of works by Isabel Sandoval, Sky Hopinka, Steve McQueen, Pasolini, and Rivette.

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

Apr 21, 2020 — What happens to the films slated to premiere at Cannes 2020? After all, the fall festival season is beginning to look pretty iffy, too.

Jul 5, 2019 — This week, we look back on the making of If...., black filmmakers in the 1990s, and the golden age of Mexican cinema.

Jun 21, 2019 — Can the movies survive? Can rotten people be great artists? Are we all doomed?