Bits of Life

Jul 9, 2007 — Hiroshi Teshigahara’s first feature is the kind of uncanny, equivocally realist movie you might hope to duck into in a strange city, stumbling across it in a low-rent theater while escaping a bad date or a debt collector.

Apr 17, 2006 — In the absence of a finished, definitive edit of Orson Welles’s enigmatic project, three writers dive into the unsolvable mystery of the film and the different versions presented in the Criterion edition.

Jul 1, 1990 — Jacques Tati’s radiant comedy charms first by its fresh simplicity and later by the depth and richness of its technique.

Dec 11, 1989 — Previous rock-and-roll movies had been little more than showcases for the latest music, aimed at exploiting the youth market, cheaply made and melodramatic—then along came one of the most finely crafted films ever made about rock-and-roll.

Aug 27, 2025 — The summer’s been terrific for new movie magazines and filmmaker biographies.

Apr 22, 2025 — Adaptations, Hollywood histories, and Satyajit Ray’s cover designs feature in this month’s roundup.

Jul 29, 2024 — Made in an era when self-consciously postmodern takes on the Bard were popular, Gus Van Sant’s melancholy road movie mines the ambiguously queer tensions in the history play Henry IV.

Jun 2, 2023 — The late filmmaker had a profound impact on directors such as Scorsese and Lynch; he could also be a handful.

Sep 8, 2022 — All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is the only nonfiction film competing in Venice—and Werner Herzog and Mark Cousins remain as busy as ever.

May 27, 2022 — After firing up the screen in Something Wild, Liotta secured immortality as a wiseguy in Goodfellas.