A posthumous tribute to two male directors who encouraged audience identification with women onscreen and made opportunities for female film artists.
The 10th anniversary of the Chicago edition of the traveling Noir City festival runs from August 17 to 23 at the Music Box Theatre.
The latest on Blu-ray and streaming services, including "La La Land," "Lion," "Hidden Figures," "Split" and much more!
Molly Haskell speaks with Matt Zoller Seitz about "From Reverence to Rape," "Love and Other Infectious Diseases," "Steven Spielberg: A Life in Films" and more.
An appreciation of the late novelist and filmmaker Nora Ephron.
Sheila writes: In Roger Ebert's Great Movies review of Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver," he writes: "The technique of slow motion is familiar to audiences, who usually see it in romantic scenes, or scenes in which regret and melancholy are expressed--or sometimes in scenes where a catastrophe looms, and cannot be avoided. But Scorsese was finding a personal use for it, a way to suggest a subjective state in a POV shotPOV shot...one of Scorsese's greatest achievements in 'Taxi Driver' is to take us inside Travis Bickle's point of view." I came across a wonderful video that shows Scorsese's storyboards for "Taxi Driver" alongside the actual filmed scenes.
An in-depth look at the extraordinary film career of 100-year-old actor Norman Lloyd, currently starring in Judd Apatow's "Trainwreck."
Scout Tafoya's series on overlooked or under appreciated films continues with screenwriter John Patrick Shanley's debut feature.
Kevin Spacey discusses the timelessness of William Shakespeare, impact of Hill Street Blues, and the moment he knew he was an actor.
Writer Dan Callahan responds to our Movie Love Questionnaire.
A tribute to Mickey Rooney, 1920–2014.
The calculation of odds is finished. The campaigning is done. Erik Childress predicts the winners of the Oscars.
For Michał Oleszczyk, translating for his mom makes for a more active engagement with the movie.
Sheila writes: Thank you all for taking the time to answer our survey! We will keep you posted on any changes that may come about. So let's get to the newsletter, shall we? Jack Kerouac famously wrote the majority of "On the Road" on one long scroll of paper. Kerouac found that taking the time to remove the finished pages off of the typewriter and replacing them with a fresh sheet interrupted his flow. California artist Paul Rogers, who has done ten book covers for Random House UK of Hemingway classic, has created an online scroll of beautiful illustrations for Kerouac's novel. Evocative and gritty, they make a great companion piece for "On the Road". You can see more of Paul Rogers' cool work at his site.
Marie writes: The West Coast is currently experiencing a heat wave and I have no air conditioning. That said, and despite it currently being 80F inside my apartment, at least the humidity is low. Although not so low, that I don't have a fan on my desk and big glass of ice tea at the ready. My apartment thankfully faces East and thus enjoys the shade after the sun has crossed the mid-point overhead. And albeit perverse in its irony, it's because it has been so hot lately that I've been in the mood to watch the following film again and which I highly recommend to anyone with taste and a discerning eye.
"The Life and Death of a Porno Gang" is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Synapse films.
Cinema, that traditionally aristocratic medium, has always found unlikely ways to commiserate with the working man and the poor. In America, King Vidor's "The Crowd" showed us a man trapped on the treadmill of lower middle class survival in the big city. A few years later, Frank Borzage's "Man's Castle" gave us Spencer Tracy as a street hustler who learns that Depression-era struggle is no excuse to turn his back on a chance at family life. It's the same in every country, every era: Societies that place the bulk of their economic burden upon the low man's shoulders often send that man scrambling in the opposite direction of happiness, in the name of happiness. A random spin of the world cinema wheel will turn up great directors whose finest work touches on this phenomenon: Ken Loach, Ousmane Sembene, the Dardenne brothers, Ulrich Seidl, the Italian neorealists, the blacklisted Americans, and so on.
Great Movies
