Great Movies
Tributes
The End of an Era: Norman Lloyd, 1914-2021
A tribute to Norman Lloyd, the legendary actor, director and producer, whose career spanned eight decades.
A tribute to Norman Lloyd, the legendary actor, director and producer, whose career spanned eight decades.
A tribute to the late director and cinema historian, Bertrand Tavernier.
A body of work at once austere, beautiful, tactile, allusive and deeply generous.
An appreciation of "The Blackcoat's Daughter"; A letter to my mother; "Happy Campers" deserves classic status; Relevance of "The House is Black"; In praise of "Old Enough."
An interview with author Pascal Mérigeau, whose latest work celebrates the life of filmmaker Jean Renoir.
Matt writes: Abbas Kiarostami, who passed away July 4th at age 76, was one of the great masters of the cinematic art form. I'll never forget the experience of watching his 1990 landmark, "Close-Up," in its pristine Criterion edition, or becoming entranced by his 2010 masterwork, "Certified Copy," when I first saw it on the big screen. Patrick Z. McGavin wrote a beautiful tribute to Kiarostami, as did Godfrey Cheshire, who reflected on his friendship with the icon. Various staff members at RogerEbert.com also pitched in to offer their own remembrances in a lovely multi-voice piece.
A packed version of our Blu-ray guide with thoughts on "Knight of Cups," "Midnight Special," "10 Cloverfield Lane," "45 Years" and many more!
A celebration of Anna Magnani's acting career on the occasion of a retrospective at the Lincoln Center running May 18-June 1.
Brad Bischoff on "The Grasshopper"; Seismic shift in the film festival world; Relevance of "The Second Civil War"; Ta-Nehisi Coates on "Black Panther"; Ode to "Bad News Bears."
Rooney Mara regrets "Pan"; U.S. military paper brands hijabs "passive terrorism"; Lena Dunham on Kesha; How Louis CK saved cinema; Harrison Ford's best non-Lucas films.
An appreciation of Ingrid Bergman on her centenary, with interviews with Pia Lindstrom, Ingrid Rossellini and Isabella Rossellini.
An in-depth look at the extraordinary film career of 100-year-old actor Norman Lloyd, currently starring in Judd Apatow's "Trainwreck."
A guide to the best new releases on Blu-ray and DVD, including Nightcrawler, John Wick, Dear White People, Force Majeure, and more.
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.
Bolstered by Akira Ifukube's trudging "Gojira" theme and the shorthand it affords, on two separate filmic occasions director Leos Carax chose to pair it with a city-scrolling vista, and in doing so reference his past work for the first time. Homage and visual motifs have always earmarked the enigmatic auteur's films, namely in the unstable romances of "Boy Meets Girl" and "Les Amants de Pont Neuf," but within his two most recent efforts -- a section of the 2008 triptych "Tokyo!" and his 2012 vexing "Holy Motors" -- he centers this rare repetition on one character that is not so much a reprisal as it is an emotional transformation.
OK, this is where it really gets interesting. Forget the consensus Top 50 Greatest Movies of All Time; let's get personal. Sight & Sound has now published the top 250 titles in its 2012 international critics poll, the full list of more than 2,000 movies mentioned, and all the individual lists of the 845 participating critics, academics, archivists and programmers, along with any accompanying remarks they submitted. I find this to be the most captivating aspect of the survey, because it reminds us of so many terrific movies we may have forgotten about, or never even heard of. If you want to seek out surprising, rewarding movies, this is a terrific place to start looking. For the past few days I've been taking various slices at the "data" trying to find statistical patterns, and to glean from the wealth of titles some treasures I'd like to heartily recommend -- and either re-watch or catch up with myself.
I know we're supposed to consider the S&S poll a feature film "canon" -- a historically influential decennial event since 1952, but just one of many. I don't disagree with Greg Ferrara at TCM's Movie Morlocks ("Ranking the Greats: Please Make it Stop") when he says that limiting ballots to ten all-time "best" (or "favorite," "significant," "influential" titles is incredibly limiting. That's why I think perusing at the critics' personal lists, the Top 250 (cited by seven critics or more) and the full list of 2,045 films mentioned is more enjoyable pastime.
It's wise to remember that, although the top of the poll may at first glance look relatively conservative or traditional, there's a tremendous diversity in the individual lists. Even the top vote-getter, "Vertigo," was chosen by less than one quarter of the participants.
