An American Crime

May 11, 2020 — This week’s round comes loaded with lists: 100 novels about cinema, fifty novelizations, and dozens of Sheila O’Malley’s favorite biographies.

Mar 16, 2020 — This month we’re reading about Helen Scott, a liaison between Paris and Hollywood; Anna Karina’s novels; William Faulkner’s screenplays; and more.

May 27, 2019 — The awards have been presented, the red carpet rolled up, and now we can gather a little perspective on this year’s competition.

Apr 30, 2019 — With its fresh vision, and yes, box office success, Boyz n the Hood (1991) made Singleton a force to be reckoned with for nearly three decades.

Nov 23, 2018 — The work of James Agee (1909–1955) remains one of the touchstones of American movie criticism. An extraordinarily versatile writer, he won acclaim as a novelist, a poet, and a screenwriter (his scripts for The African Queen and The Night of the...

Jun 13, 2018 — Can a screenwriter influence—even change—the course of film history? With his script for Rashomon (1950), Shinobu Hashimoto, who turned 100 this year, did just that. The film launched its director—Akira Kurosawa—to world fame and brought international audiences to the glory...

Apr 17, 2018 — “Almost every Steven Spielberg movie has its antecedent in a TV show, a movie serial or a comic book,” wrote Michael Sragow when he spoke with Spielberg for Rolling Stone in 1981. “The one he feels [Raiders of the Lost...

Mar 5, 2018 — New York. “The New York street (and fashion) photographer turned New Left filmmaker gets a ninetieth birthday fête with The Eyes of William Klein,” writes J. Hoberman for the New York Review of Books. “Klein made his most political work...

Feb 15, 2018 — Think of The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and pink pastels, purple uniforms, and the occasional splash of red may come to mind, offset by the ochres and faded wood grains of the scenes that frame the main story. Moonrise Kingdom...

Jan 31, 2018 — The SXSW Film Festival, whose 2018 edition runs from March 9 through 18, has announced a lineup of 132 features—with more on the way. With descriptions from the festival . . . Narrative Feature CompetitionFamily. Director/Screenwriter: Laura Steinel. When an...