Blue

Jan 5, 2016 — Toshiya Fujita’s two-film saga set exuberant, manga-inspired martial-arts choreography against a backdrop of a Japanese society in transition to unfold a vivid tale of epic vengeance.

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

Sep 28, 2015 — Rarely has schizophrenia been closer to the surface of American cinema than in the transitional period of 1968–71. Hollywood had just abandoned its censorship code after nearly thirty-five years, and the behemoth studios were heaving and rattling into oblivion or...

Aug 26, 2015 — Here’s an item of interest to everybody who feels Bob Dylan’s words are pure gold. Like last year, when Dylan’s original handwritten lyrics for “Like a Rolling Stone” were sold for over two million dollars at Sotheby’s, an original typewritten...

Jul 22, 2015 — Stephen Frears brings a playful and shimmering cinematic quality to Hanif Kureishi’s multilayered script about a Pakistani immigrant community in Margaret Thatcher–era London.

Jun 17, 2015 — From a shrewd adaptation by André Gregory and Wallace Shawn, Jonathan Demme fashions a visually inventive dreamscape out of an Ibsen classic.

May 22, 2015 — A music star burns brightly and flames out beautifully in Mark Rydell’s visceral rock-and-roll film, starring a sensational Bette Midler.

Dec 2, 2014 — Les Blank’s documentaries focusing on musicians are wonderfully easygoing and authentic. Watching films like A Well Spent Life, a 1971 portrait of Texas blues guitarist Mance Lipscomb, one senses a relationship of total trust between subjects and filmmakers. In this...

Nov 5, 2014 — A review of the American auteur’s posthumously published novel

Oct 14, 2014 — What happens offscreen is as important as what’s on- in John Ford’s subtle, elegiac take on the Wyatt Earp–Doc Holliday story.