The Spectacular Now

Apr 9, 2013 — David Cronenberg and William S. Burroughs: it was a meeting of the mutant minds years in the making.

Dec 11, 2012 — The climate change expert discusses how Godfrey Reggio’s films presaged widespread concern about global warming and warned about the dangers of consumerism.

Jul 19, 2010 — “Why do you want to dance?” “Why do you want to live?” A question followed by another question stands at the beating heart of The Red Shoes. It’s an entirely rhetorical exchange, but it underscores the power and the mystery...

May 27, 2010 — Dismiss from your mind, momentarily at least, the John Ford we know, who could define himself with the three words “I make westerns.” Before Stagecoach (1939), Ford’s talking pictures played out in submarines, penitentiaries, and Scottish castles, in Mesopotamia, colonial...

Nov 27, 2006 — Centered on the destruction wrought by unbridled female eros, Pandora’s Box would, in its shockingly modern, instinct-driven psychology, end up defining both its director and its star.

Apr 15, 1992 — When President Kennedy announced that Ian Fleming’s novels were amongst his favorite bedside reading, the international stage was set for the entrance of a new cinematic character. His name was Bond—James Bond. In 1962, Dr. No burst onto the screen...

Nov 10, 1986 — Max Ophuls’s masterpiece is a transformation of a conventional subject into an avant-garde adventure, and a spectacular stylistic breakthrough in the utilization of wide screen and color.

Feb 24, 2021 — Hollywood is the unofficial ministry of propaganda for the United States. Newcomers to this country typically begin their process of Americanization well before they arrive, having been exposed, for quite some time, to the long-distance bombardment of American blockbusters. In...

Nov 25, 2020 — “Yes, life is a dream, but sometimes that dream is a fatal abyss.” Wanda in The White Sheik (1952) I have a vivid memory from the first film-studies class I enrolled in, a class on Italian neorealism, where the weekly...

Apr 10, 2013 — Teinosuke Kinugasa’s landmark color film is a visual feast that has finally been vibrantly restored.