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The Rich Humanism of Sebastián Lelio's 'Gloria Bell'

For those curious about what awaits them on the other side of youth, writer-director Sebastián Lelio's indie drama Gloria Bell offers an unflinching glimpse at some unforgiving terrain.

Film

The Past You Can't Escape: Strained Camaraderie in Elaine May's 'Mikey and Nicky'

Childhood friends are tricky. They're the friends you leave behind but can never completely escape. Elaine May conveys this with disruptive technique in Mikey and Nicky.

Film

Julianne Moore Anchors Sebastián Lelio's Striking 'Gloria Bell'

Sebastián Lelio's fascination with womanhood and desire have culminated in Gloria Bell, with actor Julianne Moore tailor-made to its particular kind of searching melancholy.

Film

All You Love and Hate Will Disappear: 'Ash Is Purest White'

In Jia Zhang-Ke's powerful love story, Ash Is Purest White, a woman and her gangster lover enact a dark dance of betrayal while modern China changes around them in explosively strange ways.

Film

A Lucid Dream: Interview with 'Untogether' Director Emma Forrest

Emma Forrest reflects on a plot similarity to David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, her love of the absence of narrative impetus in the cinema of Jim Jarmusch, and the joy of filming Jemima Kirke's face.

Film

Bearing the Weight of the World with 'An Elephant Sitting Still'

The beautiful tragedy in Hu Bo's An Elephant Sitting Still (Da xiang xi di er zuo) burns slowly yet powerfully, revealing the connections and disconnections that root our modern psyche.

Film

In Two Minds: Robert Altman's 'Images' Essays the Terrors of Schizophrenia

Altman's Images is a complex, haunting and always disturbing film about the slow realization that one's sanity is a stake.

Film

'Transit' Is a Surreal Romance for a Scary Time

Roughly transposed to today from Anna Seghers' World War II novel about refugees fleeing the Nazis, Christian Petzold's Transit resonates in all the worst ways.

Film

But a Dream within a Dream: Luigi Bazzoni's 'The Possessed'

The Possessed (aka Lady of the Lake) is a feverish dream-narrative in which the protagonist is often literally fevered and dreaming, yet he jerks awake more often than people in a Brian De Palma movie.

Film

Brigitte Bardot and the Spectacle of the Trial in Clouzot's 'La Vérité'

Despite Clouzot's apparent belief that a trial can't summarize a person's life, he has faith in cinema's ability to do so, as he conveys with La Vérité.

Film

Visual Feasts: Merchant Ivory Do What They Do Best in 'Feast of July'

Visual aestheticism has never been a weak point for the Merchant Ivory production team and they certainly don't slack in their abilities with the sumptuous Feast of July.

Film

Outsmarting the Auteur: Reassigning Power in Alfred Hitchcock's 'Marnie'

A contemporary viewing of Alfred Hitchcock's 1964 film, Marnie, makes it clear: we must understand the inner workings of the male gaze and subsequently annihilate it.

Film

So Dark, So Lovely: Joseph H. Lewis's Early Noirs

Arrow Academy's Blu-rays of Joseph H. Lewi's My Name Is Julia Ross and So Dark the Night provide quality visuals and thoughtful analysis -- and will satisfy your longing for disturbing noir.

Games

Can You Relate? An Interview with 'The Wife' Director, Björn Runge

Director Björn Runge finds it easy to relate to women in his filmmaking. He discusses his work on the film adaptation of Meg Wolitzer's The Wife with PopMatters' Paul Risker.

Film

Mads Mikkelsen's Inimitable Talent for Silent Acting Compels the Survival Story in 'Arctic'

Joe Penna's debut, survival film Arctic, is yet another showcase for the formidable Mads Mikkelsen, who continues to carve out a space in modern moviemaking that few other actors could occupy.

Film

Truth and the Classic Heist Film: Director James Marsh on 'King of Thieves'

James Marsh reflects on embracing the truth in spite of its vulgarity and awkwardnesses to tell a dramatised factual account of the Hatton Garden diamond heist in his film, King of Thieves.

Film

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