Jul 29, 2024 — Made in an era when self-consciously postmodern takes on the Bard were popular, Gus Van Sant’s melancholy road movie mines the ambiguously queer tensions in the history play Henry IV.

May 13, 2009 — Alexander Korda’s oeuvre is often characterized as larger-than-life, undoubtedly in part because the figures he was attracted to—kings and queens, legendary lovers and great artists—were often extraordinary.

Oct 7, 2015 — It’s night in the desert. Mike (River Phoenix), a teenage hustler given to bouts of narcolepsy, and Scott (Keanu Reeves), a slumming preppy prince, are huddled over a campfire. “I just want to kiss you, man,” says Mike softly. The...

Aug 11, 2016 — Gus Van Sant’s groundbreaking 1991 work of New Queer Cinema, which follows the relationship between a narcoleptic haunted by feverish dreams of his past and the rebellious son of a mayor, is showing at the George Eastman Museum.

Sep 3, 2017 — “With writer-director James Toback, you never know quite what you’re going to get, quality-wise,” writes Glenn Kenny at RogerEbert.com. “What you do know you’re going to get is something very indicative of the personality of James Toback—defiant, searching, self-indulgent, absurdist,...

Feb 22, 2009 — “Let me have men about me that are fat.” —Julius Caesar, act 1, scene 2 Just as Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe admired small, brave men who stick to their principles, I like—in the movies at least—heavyset, flamboyant types who walk...

Mar 30, 2009 — You can add James Franco to the list of Criterion’s most ardent fans. This month, the actor, seen left in a photo recalling My Own Private Idaho, taken by Gus Van Sant in Oregon in fall 2008, has contributed to...

Oct 22, 2013 — Jonathan Caouette is the director of several feature-length documentaries: the award-winning personal diary film Tarnation (2004), produced by John Cameron Mitchell and Gus Van Sant; All Tomorrow’s Parties (2009), about the music festival; and Walk Away Renee (2011), the follow-up...

Nov 29, 2011 — Author Michael Korda (Charmed Lives: A Family Romance) writes: Few things are more challenging than picking ten favorites out of such a long list of distinguished films as that of Criterion, and it seems only fair to point out that,...

Oct 19, 2016 — Martha Karsh, editor of The Beatles A Hard Day’s Night: A Private Archive, published in September by Phaidon, talks about her family’s Beatlemania and assembling a book about the world’s most famous rock band.