No Way Up

Sep 17, 2017 — There’s no getting around the loaded real-world context on this one. For the Daily Beast, Richard Porton begins with the “various accusations about [Louis C.K.’s] supposed sexual misconduct, which have been floating around for years since a 2012 Gawker story...

Sep 2, 2017 — Remembering Jerry Lewis in a piece for the Guardian, Martin Scorsese recalls working with him on King of Comedy: “Jerry Langford was an uncomfortable role for him to play, because he was skirting the edges of his own life in...

Aug 27, 2017 — Tobe Hooper, whose 1974 shocker The Texas Chain Saw Massacre “became one of the most influential horror films of all time,” as Pat Saperstein puts it in Variety, has passed away at the age of seventy-four. Saperstein: “Shot for less...

Aug 18, 2017 — In this unsparing drama, Mike Leigh captures the grim mood of Thatcher’s England through the frustrations of a working-class London family.

Aug 2, 2017 — Writer-director Michael Almereyda spoke with us about his two latest films and the passions that continue to fuel his creative life.

Oct 14, 2015 — Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Add to that list of great on-screen duos the Italian movie legends Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, who appeared in more than ten films together. Their 1977 film, A Special...

Oct 2, 2014 — The following is a chapter on The Innocents from cinematographer Freddie Francis’s memoir, The Straight Story from “Moby Dick” to “Glory.” It is reproduced here courtesy of Scarecrow Press. The last picture I worked on as a cinematographer in my...

Jun 17, 2014 — The brutal lessons of Vietnam remained in America’s national consciousness for a generation. September 11 gave us collective amnesia, and they’ve had to be learned again.

Jun 5, 2014 — The following is excerpted from an interview with Red River editor Christian Nyby that critic Ric Gentry conducted in 1991.

Nov 20, 2012 — Michael Cimino’s visionary western is a superbly realized account of a shocking real American tragedy.