Recent

The Unhappiest Two: The Impossible Demand in Ingmar Bergman's 'Scenes from a Marriage'

Kierkegaard's existential rumination on our impossible relation to an incommensurable and unknowable God informs much of Bergman's work, and most certainly Scenes from a Marriage.

Film

How Marvel's 'X-men: First Class' Classed Up the X-men Films

Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class refocuses the series onto its political and socially conscious origins, as well as the philosophical debate at the core of Magneto and Xavier's relationship.

Film

'Sex, Lies, and Videotape' Originated the Soderbergh Enigma

A delicate balance of the heady and the simple, Sex, Lies, and Videotape is both quintessential Steven Soderbergh and unlike anything he's directed since.

Film

Disobedience Is Essential: Interview with Filmmaker Sebastián Lelio

Sebastián Lelio reflects on his first English language feature, Disobedience, and how art, the individual, and society benefits from one's rebellion against one's own worldview.

Film

Engaging Flow: On Ruttmann's 'Berlin, Symphony of a Great City'

One way to understand the form of Walther Ruttmann's Berlin, Symphony of a Great City, is to see it as producing states of flow that reinforce a flat ontology among humans, animals, machines, buildings, bodies of water, etc.

Film

Lost In Hollywood: Dietrich and Von Sternberg's American Cinema

Across six films from 1930-1935 newly restored in a Criterion Collection box set, director Josef von Sternberg and star Marlene Dietrich brought controversy and style to the Hollywood template.

Film

Framing White Nationalism in Spike Lee's 'BlacKkKlansman'

Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman most dramatically reveals how race is a performance, not a biological essence, as it focuses on the importance of language in structuring racial representations.

Film

The Improbability of Communication in 'The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez'

The inability to communicate truthfully and accurately runs like a red thread through the course of Robert M. Young's western, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez.

Film

'Get Shorty' Is the Purest Distillation of Elmore Leonard

The 1995 Hollywood caper Get Shorty, starring John Travolta, Gene Hackman and Danny DeVito, was billed as Elmore Leonard's revenge on the movie industry, but it has a funny way of showing it.

Film

At the Crossroads of Pity and Revolt: Intensity and Time in Lino Brocka's 'Manila in the Claws of Light'

Lino Brocka's Manila in the Claws of Light seethes with rage against colonial oppression without ever becoming overt agitprop.

Film

Band of Brothers: Jason Reitman, Matt Bai, and Jay Carson on 'The Front Runner'

Filmmaker Jason Reitman and co-writers Matt Bai and Jay Carson delve into the band-like creative process behind their thought-provoking political drama, The Front Runner, revolving around Gary Hart's scandalous 1988 presidential campaign.

Film

'On Her Shoulders': Awareness of Trauma Is Not Enough

In this interview with Director Alexandria Bombach centered on her recent documentary about Nadia Murad, On Her Shoulders, she reflects on how we process another's trauma, and how we might be moved beyond simply awareness.

Film

The Bee-all and End-all of 'The Swarm', or Irwin Allen's Human Bee-in

No matter if they're African or Brazilian bad-ass bees, what matters to the Yanks in The Swarm is that a bunch of vicious foreigners want to invade their land and claim their women!

Film

'Thor' Blasted the Comic Book Superhero Genre Away from Earth

Kenneth Branagh's Thor (2011) took the largely Earth-based, sci-fi genre into the realm of supernatural space fantasy, leading the way for a wider array of comic book superhero films.

Film

The Dialectic of the Freak: On John Waters' 'Female Trouble'

In John Waters' work, poor taste is a manner of refinement that attains a strange air of considered sophistication and knowing advertency.

Film

'Major Arcana' and the Struggle to Overcome Who We Are

An interview with writer-director Josh Melrod and lead actor Ujon Tokarski on the dreamlike nature of cinema and the shared human experience.

Film

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