Life Is Beautiful

Jun 22, 2021 — The multi-hyphenate artist’s staggering and frequently autobiographical body of work reimagines the depiction of Black people in American culture, encouraging us to question everything we see.

Jan 19, 2021 — In the summer of 1976, my parents took me to see the tall ships in New York Harbor. I was ten, and I remember very little about it other than that I went and that the ships, tall, did not...

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...

Nov 19, 2020 — For most of my life, makeover sequences in film comedies held an irresistible allure. The mousy young woman who realizes her own inner and outer (but mostly outer) beauty after receiving the attentions of the right man (or the right...

Aug 31, 2020 — Fans around the world remember an accomplished actor, a genuine movie star, and a generous role model.

Aug 13, 2020 — Today on the Current we launched a new series called First Person, in which we’re inviting writers from around the world to reflect on their most unforgettable moviegoing experiences. While developing the series, we were looking for good stories, beautiful...

Jul 28, 2020 — The films of Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda are graceful meditations on memory and the inextricable connections that bind our lives together. Whether transporting us to a way station in the afterlife or into a household in crisis, his character studies...

Jul 5, 2020 — Among today’s most revered jazz musicians, pianist and composer Jason Moran stands out for how seamlessly he blends tradition and innovation. Throughout his now two-decade career, he has honored the complex history of one of America’s most storied art forms...

Jun 15, 2020 — The eye contact, the exhilarating anxiety of sharing private tastes, the power of knowing what you want and summoning up the courage to ask for it: in case you can’t tell, I’m talking about the once-upon-a-time experience of renting a...

Jun 10, 2020 — Years ago I took a seminar on movie stars led by the writer Wayne Koestenbaum, a glittering episode that closed out a rather colorless stint in graduate school. The syllabus was replete with inspired double bills⁠—Deleuze on Leibniz + Lana...