Fellini’s ‘La Strada’ Is a Lament for the Downtrodden
Fellini’s fable about an innocent clown roaming postwar Italy with an abusive strongman, La Strada, has the romance of his later epics but a more potent sense of tragedy.
Film Review
Alfred Hitchcock Plays with Trains in ‘Number Seventeen’
Alfred Hitchcock’s Number Seventeen isn’t a great film but a good one that reminds us of what a casually obsessive craftsman he was.
‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Wildly Rocks Multiple Worlds
In a world where everybody knows that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, universes are bound to go crazy, and that makes Spider-Man: No Way Home fantastic entertainment.
The Beatles: Get Back, The Long and Riveting Epic
What is revealed with The Beatles: Get Back is a set of cumulative portraits that shed light not only on John, Paul, George, and Ringo but on all of us.
’40s-Era Horror-Noir ‘Among the Living’ Ain’t Whistling Dixie
We never know everything that goes on that night in horror-noir ‘Among the Living’. This film is no affirmative vision of a small town in the American South.
Raindance 2021: Body Image Horror ‘Shapeless’ Explores the Anorexic Mind
Award-winning director Amanda Aldana’s Shapeless is a sensitive study of anorexia and the power of the mind over the body.
Quick and Dirty Tales of Murder and Journalism in Hollywood
Flicker Alley’s set of Hollywood B-films from 1934 provide sociological snapshots of the limits of respectable cinema.
‘Ratcatcher’ Shows People, Not Poverty Porn
Lynne Ramsay’s gutting, eerily beautiful first film, Ratcatcher, shows a director refusing to let the impoverished circumstances of her characters define them.
Raindance 2021: Don’t Let the Protagonist of Horror/Thriller Where’s Rose Seduce You
John Mathis’ Where’s Rose, which premiered at Raindance Film Festival 2021, explores the misogynistic darkness behind the charismatic personality.
The Syllabus of ‘Filibus’ the Gentlewoman Thief
WWI was underway when silent film Filibus hit theaters, so this elegant, war-free escapism of immorality among the ruling class may have provided mass therapy.
Film-Noir Thriller ‘The Amazing Mr. X’ Shimmers with Beautiful Spookery
Directed by low-budget maestro Bernard Vorhaus, the restored film-noir ‘The Amazin Mr. X’ is an unpredictable little specimen of spookery-pokery.