By Tony Williams. After reviewing the disappointing Criterion Von Sternberg/Dietrich DVD Collection and noting the company’s inexplicable emphasis on popular films available elsewhere, it is a pleasure to see Criterion return to form with this three-disc version of Tarkovsky’s masterpiece. Subject of many fine critical books and articles, the film’s […]
Watering the Money Tree: Eugen Damaschin’s Beautiful Corruption (2018)
Brandon Konecny
January 24, 2019
By Brandon Konecny. In 2014, Moldova experienced what many observers called the “theft of the century.” One billion dollars disappeared from the country’s banking system. That’s nearly an eighth of its gross domestic product. Because some worried that the country’s already fragile economy would collapse, the government intervened. The banks […]
First Man and Last Things
Christopher Sharrett
January 9, 2019
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By Christopher Sharrett. I have just recently seen Damien Chazelle’s First Man after putting it off during its initial release. The film holds some interest for me, unlike his previous two films, Whiplash (2015) and La La Land (2016), the first a throwback, I think, to films of the 1970s […]
Just Slightly Off: True Stories
December 28, 2018
By John Duncan Talbird. My friends and I loved the Talking Heads when we were in college. You could not go a week in our house without hearing at least one of their most recent albums: Speaking in Tongues (1983), Stop Making Sense (1984), Little Creatures (1985). (Even today, I don’t […]
There’s No Place Like Home: Revisiting Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day (Criterion Collection)
December 3, 2018
By Jeremy Carr. In her essay for the Criterion Collection release of Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day, Moira Weigel opens with a roll call of the assorted characters who have appeared in the films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder: There is the cruel friend from Berlin Alexanderplatz, carrying himself like a […]
Re-Working Hitchcock: Brian De Palma’s Sisters (Criterion Collection)
By Tony Williams. De Palma’s Sisters has long been overdue for a new 4K digital restoration that Criterion now supplies along with some significant supplementary material on the disk. The days have long gone when the director’s post-satirical films were dismissed by critics as mere Hitchcock copies in a manner […]
Notes on Pablo Larraín
By Christopher Sharrett. Some months ago I published in this location brief remarks on Pablo Larraín’s remarkable film Jackie (2016), one of the most compelling works of its season. The film had me going back, revisiting Larraín’s other work, which resulted in my present view that he is in the […]
Screwball/Great Depression Denial Syndrome: My Man Godfrey (Criterion Collection)
By Tony Williams. Gregory La Cava’s My Man Godfrey (1936) is admittedly one of the best screwball comedies of the 1930s that provided witty dialogue, entertainment, and “acceptable” references to the Great Depression in the limited manner Hollywood allowed at this time. Far removed from the more gritty Warner Bros’ […]
From a Longtime Insider/Outsider – Two Cheers for Hollywood: Joseph McBride on Movies
October 24, 2018
A Book Review Essay by Tony Williams. Joseph McBride, currently Professor of Film Studies at San Francisco State University, has had a long and varied career both in the film industry and as an independent critic for many decades. Soon we will finally get to see his long-awaited role as […]
Colette in the #MeToo Era
By Elizabeth Toohey. If ever a movie was ripe for release, it’s the new bio-pic Colette. The life and career of one of France’s most celebrated novelists hits in rapid succession all the major notes of the MeToo movement, which shows no signs of slowing down, now with the recent […]