My First Film

Jun 15, 2016 — Although afflicted by on-set drama and offscreen tragedy, Jean Renoir’s La Chienne shows the director’s early mastery of sound cinema and features the trademarks that would come to define his style.

Apr 4, 2016 — Ray Dolby did not match the conventional image of an eccentric inventor, nor that of a business mogul. But his name now represents a benchmark by which the recording of sound and its playback on disc and in movie theaters...

Mar 29, 2016 — Les Blank’s long-lost documentary revels in the trippy, eccentric world of and surrounding Tulsa Sound pioneer Leon Russell, transforming what might have been a standard concert movie into a genuine work of art.

Dec 29, 2015 — One refrain often heard in discussions of twenty-first-century film culture is a lament for the loss of social film viewing. While we celebrate the fact that digital technologies have given us convenient access to unprecedented numbers of movies, old and...

Nov 12, 2015 — Michael Haneke’s politically prescient drama explores the tenuous, uneasy connections between inhabitants of a globally interwoven Europe.

Nov 5, 2015 — Julien Duvivier’s early sound films offer emotionally rich explorations of life in prewar France.

Oct 13, 2015 — Divorce wreaks a particularly devastating form of havoc in David Cronenberg's personal take on the dissolution of a marriage.

Sep 24, 2015 — Bruce Beresford critiques the British colonialist era in this precise, layered adaptation of a 1939 novel by Joyce Cary.

May 22, 2015 — It is one of my most strongly held critical beliefs that you should not write about films you don’t like. First, it is bad for the soul to exult in pointing out the deficiencies of the film in question. Second,...

May 11, 2015 — The poignancy of Leo McCarey's tearjerker is due as much to the director's scrupulous aesthetic choices as his unforgettable characters and story.