That's Life

Jun 16, 2017 — The title of the first part of Tom Paulus’s projected three-part essay for photogénie, “The Love Connection: Another Jam Session on Narrative,” references “Jam Session on Non-Narrative,” a conversation that took place between film critics Jonathan Rosenbaum, David Ehrenstein, and...

May 31, 2017 — New York. The BAMcinématek series Varda in California opens today and runs through June 13. The New Yorker’s Richard Brody recommends Lions Love (. . . and Lies) (1969): “Filming this docu-fiction in Los Angeles in June, 1968, the week...

May 28, 2017 — The jury for the 70th Cannes Film Festival—Pedro Almodóvar (president), Maren Ade, Jessica Chastain, Fan Bingbing, Agnès Jaoui, Park Chan-wook, Will Smith, Paolo Sorrentino, and Gabriel Yared—has presented this year’s Palme d’Or to Ruben Östlund’s The Square.A special 70th Anniversary...

May 27, 2017 — “Some filmmakers rust during periods of inactivity,” begins Guy Lodge in Variety. “Lynne Ramsay arches and tenses, lying in wait like an attack dog. And attack she does, though not in all the expected ways, in her astonishing fourth feature...

May 26, 2017 — Today’s second Competition entry is Fatih Akin’s In the Fade, and we begin with the A.V. Club’s A. A. Dowd: “Diane Kruger stars as Katja, a woman whose husband, a Turkish immigrant, and son, who’s only six, are killed in...

May 25, 2017 — “The act of seeing has a special meaning in Japanese director Naomi Kawase’s Radiance, in which the job of character Misako (Ayame Misaki) is to write the scripts for the audio-assist provided for blind patrons at the movies,” writes Barbara...

May 24, 2017 — “Cinema lost one of its pre-eminent pioneers when Abbas Kiarostami died on July 4, 2016,” writes Giovanni Marchini Camia at the Film Stage, where he notes that 24 Frames “was as good as finished” at the time of his passing....

May 23, 2017 — “He was the epitome of the suave English gent, quipping sweatlessly in a bespoke three-piece suit, who enjoyed an acting career spanning eight decades,” writes Benjamin Lee for the Guardian. “On Tuesday, Roger Moore’s children announced his death at the...

May 22, 2017 — “She is an 88-year-old film directing icon with a two-tone purple rinse,” begins David Jenkins at Little White Lies. “He is a 33-year-old photographer and conceptual artist who likes to wear a silly little trilby hat. Together, they amble around...

May 21, 2017 — “Arguably, more question marks hung over the prospect of Redoubtable than over any other film in Cannes this year,” begins Jonathan Romney in Screen. “One reason was the idea of Michel Hazanavicius, director of the world-beating The Artist, seeming too...