Out of the Past

Nov 20, 2006 — It’s been a few weeks since Peter and I started this blog, and we are gratified that the response has been so positive. We debated for a while whether or not I should have hot-linked my email address last week,...

Sep 29, 2003 — “Gray literature” is the term German film historians use to describe the material written purely for publicity purposes and made available to the press, but not meant for official publication. Often this gray literature, which is only accessible to film...

Feb 14, 2002 — Robert Bresson’s second feature is fixed in history as one of the movies that heralded an austere, modernistic way of seeing and feeling.

Aug 14, 2026 — Fine writing on Powell and Pressburger, James Gray, Catherine Breillat, and Richard Linklater—plus: Isabelle Huppert on Claude Chabrol.

Mar 13, 2026 — SXSW opens, Another Gaze returns, and Juliette Binoche is on tour with her directorial debut.

Feb 5, 2026 — In a collection of behind-the-scenes documentaries now playing on the Criterion Channel, legendary female performers assert their agency over their screen personae and find freedom in the glamour and artifice of their profession.

Dec 2, 2025 — Even as he carries on winning awards, Jafar Panahi is sentenced to another year in prison.

Sep 22, 2025 — The director of the documentary Celluloid Underground discusses his life as a curator, Iranian film culture, and the inherent ephemerality of cinema.

Aug 26, 2025 — Alice Wu’s feature debut is a romantic comedy in which the most compelling relationship is the one between a young queer Chinese American woman and her long-widowed mother.

Jun 13, 2025 — Darling and Dogma are back in theaters, and Edmund White is remembered with his great essay on Jean Genet and Jean Cocteau.