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A Fix of Fantasy: Reviving the Wondrous Films of Karel Zeman

The imaginative filmmaker Karel Zeman influenced many artists including Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton, fellow Czech Jan Švankmajer, the Brothers Quay, and animator Lawrence Jordan's recycling of classic 19th Century imagery.

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Film

Yasujiro Ozu on the Arts of Pachinko, Baseball, and Marriage

Yasujiro Ozu's films can often be described as movies in which nothing happens -- nothing except the revelation of a world, its inhabitants, and a deep understanding of their contradictions.

Film

Cue the Music: 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2'

James Gunn crafts a deeply flawed film, but Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which digs deep into daddy issues, is still entertaining, visually gorgeous, and likable.

Film

'The Douglas MacLean Collection' Pokes Fun at Our Love of Clam, Cabbage, and Kale*

The bamboozle is on in silent films One a Minute and Bell Boy 13, starring comic actor Douglas MacLean.

Film

In 'Downhill', Getting Dark Just Means Getting Harsh

Nat Faxon and Jim Rash's comedy, Downhill, paints in broad strokes and peaks early, never matching the clever satire of its source material, Force Majeure.

Television

You'll Never Make It Alone: On Groups in 'The Good Place'

What happens when you put an Arizona dirtbag, a human turtleneck, a narcissistic monster, and the dumbest person you've ever met in the same room? They become good people, sure, but more importantly, they become a group.

Film

Has Terry Gilliam Finally Captured Don Quixote?

In Gilliam's 25-year pursuit of filming Don Quixote, the story is at last made manifest in The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. But the character's spirit is crafty.

Film

'The Great McGinty' Takes on the Great Political Machine

Preston Sturges' classic Hollywood comedy The Great McGinty is an incisive and bold political satire that explores the ridiculous depths of American corruption—80 years before the Trump era.

Film

'Gloria Bell': Silent Suffering and Disco Dancing in Late Capitalism

Gloria Bell painfully conveys that this economic system thrives on our isolation.

Film

In Sophie Hyde's 'Animals', the Party Must End, Already

Animals is both a personal and creative coming of age story, and a satisfying yet frustrating tale about avoiding the tragedy of getting left behind.

Film

In Defense of Enjoying Tom Hooper's 'Cats'

Critics and audiences have made much fun of Tom Hooper's Cats. The laugh is on them.

Film

Leaving Is Just as Hard as Loving in 'Marriage Story'

Noah Baumbach's attention to the daily agonies of divorce in Marriage Story displays love's enduring power—or at least, its residue.

Television

'The Simpsons' Plus-Size Marathon Is Aging Me All Over Again

For a show that so cynically pokes holes in the inanities of our plastic, apathetic world, The Simpsons' rough-edged bedrock of brilliantly conceived sentiment can cup a heart without compromising comedic integrity.

Film

When Real Life Begins: On Fellini's 'The White Sheik'

Fellini is the master of blurring the lines between the real and the surreal, demonstrating the overriding imbrication of the familiar and the fantastic. In The White Sheik, currently playing at NYC's Film Forum, he inspires wonder and bemusement.

Film

'Uncut Gems' Is an Embarrassment of Riches

Adam Sandler's career-defining performance in the Safdie Brothers' Uncut Gems is a gritty thrill ride into the psyche of an adrenaline junky.

Film

In 'Uncut Gems' Adam Sandler's Howard Ratner Is on the Brink of Everything, or Nothing

The Safdie Brothers' nervy ball of tension, #PMPick Uncut Gems, sends a hustler blasting recklessly through a city where everybody is on the make.

Film

Venus as a Boy in Silent Film 'Little Old New York'

Sidney Olcott's silent film Little Old New York falls into a tradition of men who find themselves strangely attracted to boys that turn out to be girls in disguise.

Television

In Nickelodeon's 'Rocko's Modern Life', Corporations Steal Our Souls to Enchant Their Commodities

In a society of things, social responsibility requires a recognition of the influence of commodities upon our most foundational spiritual experiences. Nickelodeon's animated series, Rocko's Modern Life, puts it simply.

Film

Eddie Murphy Returns to Form (and Fun) in 'Dolemite Is My Name'

Director Craig Brewer helms his breezy tribute to Rudy Ray Moore, the '70s Blaxploitation icon who influenced an entire generation of young Black performers, with Dolemite Is My Name.

Film

Bong Joon-ho's 'Parasite' Is a Uniquely Intelligent Satire

South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s latest film, Parasite, combines the epic class warfare of Snowpiercer with the zany activism of Okja, resulting in a brilliant, many-layered exploration of social stratification and capitalism.

Film

Spike Lee's 'Do the Right Thing' Remains Explosive and Vivid

The Criterion Collection's essential 30th anniversary Blu-ray package of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing honors the film's heart, aesthetic brilliance, and pointed message on American racism, diversity, and community.

Film

The Corrosive Veneer of John Waters' Polyester

Unlike his earlier provocations, John Waters' Polyester suggests that moral depravity may be liberating for the person willing to embrace it, but it always gives rise to pain elsewhere.

Film

Deadpool and Ryan Reynolds' 11-Year Love Affair

If the best measure of success for a comic book film is how well it captures the tone for the central character, then Ryan Reynold's beloved character in Deadpool makes it among the greatest superhero films of all time.

Film

Sub-Atomic Particles and Brilliant Heist Sequences: 'Ant-Man' Masters the Tiny Universe

There are strong emotional stakes and likeable characters in Peyton Reed's Ant-Man, but they are all rooted in a, well, less than epic scale. This makes Ant-Man refreshing, an MCU palate cleanser.

Film

'Toy Story 4' and the Consolation of Uselessness

Josh Cooley's addition to the Toy Story universe is injected with something altogether more cosmic in scope than the previous films -- a comedic reverie of all things disintegratory.

Film

A Private Revolution: Jean-Luc Godard's Second Wave

Jean-Luc Godard's cinematic oddities First Name: Carmen, Détective, and Hélas pour moi, newly released on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber, embody the vast landscape of possibilities open to the director during the '80s and '90s.

Film

How Bruce Springsteen-Inspired Film, 'Blinded by the Light', Came to Light

Director Gurinder Chadha and author/journalist Sarfraz Manzoor discuss the culture clash that inspired their film, Blinded by the Light, based on Manzoor's cross-cultural memoir, Greetings from Bury Park.

Film

Tarantino Descends to the 9th Circle in 'Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood'

Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood is the clearest signal yet of Quentin Tarantino's transition from creative referentialist to repeat offender, standing somewhere between revisionism and recidivism.

Film

'Heaven Can Wait' and Lubitsch's Love of Romance's Paradoxes

Heaven Can Wait is Lubitsch's most successful film due to his ability to turn a period-piece into an enchanting story about the human condition.

Film

'Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood' Is Tarantino's Alternate History Theory of Moviemaking

Tarantino's surprisingly warm fantasy mash-up of California dreamin' and arthouse B-movie revenge fantasy, Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, is dreamy but sacrifices coherence for the indulgence of changing history.

Film

Quentin Tarantino's 'Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood' Is a Baffling Act of Historical Revisionism

The legendary director's hotly anticipated ninth film, Once Upon a time... in Hollywood, applies his trademark wit to '60s Hollywood, but ultimately it's an oddly conservative machismo, not inventive filmmaking, that shines through.

Television

BBC's 'Fleabag' and the Inescapable Awkward Family

Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Fleabag forces viewers to sit down at the dinner table with "the family", which is a game of conversational hot potato -- and nobody wants the f*cking potato.

Film

'Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood' May Be Tarantino's Best, Most Assured Film

Tarantino's latest, Once Upon a Time.. in Hollywood, is a breezy, top-down-on-the-convertible kind of film that wows you with its surprising sweetness before punching you with a bloody fist.

Television

Men and Women Behaving Badly: 'Pursuit' and 'The Girl Most Likely To'

Made for TV programs of the '70s really knew how to dish it out. Michael Crichton's Pursuit is all about men conquering each other; whereas Lee Philips' The Girl Most Likely To is a poisoned bon-bon about making pain palatable.

Features

A Good Lie: Lulu Wang on the Real Lie Behind Her Film, 'The Farewell'

Why don't we have more immigrant stories in film? Lulu Wang talks with PopMatters about fighting to tell her story, her way, and how that came to fruition in her latest film, The Farewell.

Film

'The Art of Self-Defense' Is a Knockout Black Comedy

If director Riley Stearns sometimes loses his thematic bearings, he never forgets to deliver large, violent doses of comedy in the instant cult classic, The Art of Self-Defense.

Television

The Cost of Comfort: Racial Hierarchies in 'King of the Hill'

At its best, animation comedy show King of the Hill asks, Why are"race" issues in America always about white people?

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