The Criterion Collection
Dec 9, 2002 — What makes Jean-Luc Godard’s classic so unique a viewing experience today, even more than in 1963, is the way it stimulates an audience’s intelligence as well as its senses.
Dec 18, 2000 — Elegant humor cloaks despair in Luis Buñuel’s masterwork, wherein greedy characters flee their toxic lives and find refuge in the loneliness of dreams.
Essays
May 15, 2000 — In René Clair’s ebullient early talkie, an unsentimental love of humanity permeates every frame.
Essays
Jun 21, 1999 — Despite what you may have heard, Armageddon is a work of art by a cutting-edge artist who is a master of movement, light, color, and shape—and also of chaos, razzle-dazzle, and explosion. (It was no surprise to me to learn...
Essays
Jun 7, 1999 — “Off there to the right—somewhere—is a large island,” said Whitney. “It’s rather a mystery—” “What island is it?” Rainsford asked. “The old charts called it Ship-Trap Island,” Whitney replied. “A suggestive name, isn’t it?” Sailors have a curious dread of...
Essays
Feb 1, 1999 — Rob Reiner’s directorial debut documents a recent moment in the band’s checkered history—one that only coincidentally represents a brief decline in the sine wave of their careers.
Essays
Jun 10, 1996 — Ever since Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction created a sensation at [this year’s] Cannes Film Festival, where it won top honors (the Palme d’Or), it has been swathed in the wildest hyperbole. In fact, it has sparked an excitement bound to...
Essays
Oct 25, 1994 — Kenji Mizoguchi develops his medieval fable about moral freedom and slavery with intuition, cunning, and an overarching sense of tragedy.