Life, and Nothing More…

Sep 19, 2005 — When I was a teenage cinephile, in the mid-1970s, Masculin féminin was enormously significant to me. It repre­sented France’s nouvelle vague of the sixties, with its youthful, anarchic spirit of freedom and spontaneity. It was in black and white and...

Jun 27, 2005 — Like his earlier adaptations of Terence Rattigan plays, Anthony Asquith’s late work is bereft of heavy-handed directorial flourishes.

Oct 4, 2004 — Jack tanner, perhaps the most logically consistent presidential candidate ever to grace our fair nation’s airwaves, is blown in the bottle. Like a genie granting the wishes of all who fear that our fledging democracy is on the brink of...

Dec 3, 1990 — Over the years I have had a recurrent nightmare in which I am summoned to a large, unfamiliar building in a middle-European satellite country (Bulgaria, perhaps) to tell the idea of Annie Hall to the Bulgarian Minister of Green Lights,...

Apr 2, 2017 — What defines noir acting? In her latest Dark Passages column, Imogen Sara Smith examines the stylistic variety in some of the genre’s most iconic male performances, including Burt Lancaster in The Killers and Ralph Meeker in Kiss Me Deadly.

May 21, 2025 — The exiled American director of Try and Get Me! and Hell Drivers depicted crime and violence as the inevitable results of capitalist competition.

Aug 22, 2023 — A new restoration of Roemer’s brisk and oddly endearing 1969 comedy screens in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

Jun 9, 2023 — One of Hollywood’s most beloved actors showed a turbulent, sometimes downright sinister side in his collaborations with director Anthony Mann, which include the classic westerns Winchester ’73 and The Man from Laramie.

Apr 23, 2021 — This week we’re reading A. S. Hamrah on the contenders for this year’s Oscars and Ben Hecht on the state of Hollywood in 1938.

Mar 30, 2021 — Mike Leigh’s midcareer masterpiece is one of the finest examples of his ability to construct riveting drama from ordinary life.