Story of a Great Love

Jul 27, 2020 — The first shot of Atom Egoyan’s 1984 debut feature, Next of Kin, is a ground-level pan across the baggage claim section at Toronto’s Pearson Airport. The camera is angled so that our gaze is on the various pieces of luggage...

Apr 1, 2020 — Are Snakes Necessary?, an erotically charged tale of revenge and political intrigue, naturally features a nod to Hitchcock.

Jan 7, 2020 — Understudies everywhere should take heart at the tale of Katharine Hepburn’s long history with the role of Linda Seton, the high-spirited but reclusive heiress she plays in George Cukor’s 1938 Holiday. When the Philip Barry play the film is based...

Oct 16, 2019 — Deep Dives “I have a feeling that the really crucial moments in a film should be wordless,” the Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray once said. He was speaking of his 1964 masterpiece Charulata, whose action consists largely of soulful looks passing...

Oct 10, 2019 — Dark Passages Where the sea and the city meet, they corrupt each other. Around docks, the ocean’s margins are scummy with oil and floating garbage; the water corrodes hulls, encrusts pilings, and slimes steps. Ports cater to men who come...

Jul 16, 2017 — “Legendary filmmaker George A. Romero, father of the modern movie zombie and creator of the groundbreaking Night of the Living Dead franchise, has died at 77,” reports Tre’vell Anderson for the Los Angeles Times. “Romero died Sunday in his sleep...

Jan 28, 2014 — Terence Davies beckons the viewer into a private world of moods and sensations with this exquisite childhood reverie.

Aug 27, 2013 — Ernst Lubitsch’s World War II–era high-wire act is a profound take on the absurdity cruelty of civilization and a perfect black comedy to boot.

Jun 10, 2011 — Bringing Junichiro Tanizaki’s sprawling, elegiac histor­ical novel The Makioka Sisters (1948) to the screen would seem an undertaking tailor-made for Kon Ichikawa. The renowned writer’s work was familiar territory for the veteran director, who had adapted the quirky Tanizaki novella...

Dec 7, 2010 — In 1981, it seemed to me that a new era of fantastic cinema was upon us.