Room

Aug 21, 2019 — One Scene One of my absolute favorite quotes from Douglas Sirk—and he has a million of ’em—was made in reference to Magnificent Obsession. “It is a combination of kitsch and craziness and trashiness,” he said (this isn’t the quote quite...

Aug 19, 2019 — Vitalina Varela leads this year’s award winners at the Locarno Film Festival.

Aug 14, 2019 — A week into this year’s edition, a few critical favorites are emerging from the competition.

Aug 14, 2019 — There is a scene in Henry King’s State Fair (1933) that ranks among the most poetic moments in all of 1930s American cinema. There is not much to it, just a family driving through the dusk in their rattling pickup...

Aug 13, 2019 — Something uncanny is brewing in George Sikharulidze’s Fatherland. This darkly comedic film transports us to a spring evening in Joseph Stalin’s birthplace—Gori, Georgia—where the townspeople have gathered on the sixty-third anniversary of their long-departed leader’s death. What follows is part...

Aug 12, 2019 — This month we’re looking at titles by or about Chantal Akerman, Orson Welles, Chris Marker, Kathleen Collins, and many more filmmakers and writers.

Aug 6, 2019 — The groundbreaking filmmaker had a hand in inventing—and then reinventing over and again—the modern documentary.

Aug 2, 2019 — Extraordinarily long movies, challenging movies, and even ugly movies figure into this week’s round.

Jul 30, 2019 — One Scene Though he works in the highly stylized realm of the horror genre, Ari Aster’s acute attention to the fraught dynamics of intimate relationships—evident in his psychologically penetrating new film Midsommar—makes it easy to see how he draws inspiration...

Jul 26, 2019 — Brought to harrowing life in this film adaptation, George Orwell’s dystopian vision continues to ring true today. But so does his belief in the power of love and hope to overthrow the darkness.