A Book Review by Brandon Konecny.  The increasing visibility of Eastern European films—those of the Romanian New Wave, especially—in the United States has brought with it a corresponding rise in volumes published on the subject, including, most notably, East European Cinemas (2005), The BFI Companion to Eastern European and Russian Cinema […]

By Matthew Sorrento. Prominent for years on American television, John Frankenheimer’s Seconds had disappeared by the advent of DVD and remained unavailable until the recent Criterion release. With a generation unfamiliar with any official print, the film was gone – like its central character’s appearance by the end of the first act. […]

By Jacob Mertens.  In film, there is often a feeling of moral certainty. A protagonist has a line drawn for him by cultural expectations and he knows not to cross it, lest he find himself the villain of his own story. However, if any genre has been poised over the […]

By Mark James.  Call it Le Cruising. French filmmaker Alain Guiraudie stages a stripped-down rendition of William Friedkin’s 1980 gay serial killer thriller, set by a lake in the French mountains. Awarded a directing prize at this year’s Cannes, Stranger by the Lake handles its subject much more ably than […]

By Oana Chivoiu.  Pedro Costa’s landmark is an aesthetic of austerity that resonates with the thematic content in his features dealing with poverty, slum life, and radical limitations. Colossal Youth is a film about loss, a theme that structures the disjointed narrative fluency of the film and anchors its visual […]