Using humor and goodwill, Cookie Mueller drafted her own terms for navigating life within a misogynistic society.
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That Thing You Do! gleams with friendliness, gladness, soulfulness—the kind of personable perfectionism of a homespun masterwork.
“November Rain” is more than a music video. It’s every idea that existed in hard rock in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s compressed into nine minutes.
In spite of the Total Request Live and low-cut bootleg pants of it all, Josie and the Pussycats captures—and then eviscerates—the bizarre contours of early-2020s culture with more clarity than any piece of contemporary media.
We have mythologized Sid and Nancy because we need to make sense of senselessness.
While fictionalized accounts of rock stars' sex lives and personal relationships are often sensational, The Hours and Times distinguishes itself as a small-scale, conversational film, one that centralizes an ambiguous relationship.
What makes Alex Ross Perry’s Her Smell so refreshing is its admission of recovery as a continued effort.
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Featured Essays
For a long time, if justice had a name, it had to be Lt. Columbo.
There are a handful of shows I ask everyone if they have seen, but when I ask them if they love Friday Night Lights, what I mean is: Are you my kind of person? Are you all heart?
Body Double is a dizzyingly perverse, pastel-hued celebration of cinematic pastiche and formalist trickery.
An impressionistic weave of artistic successes and personal failings, All that Jazz is at once a confession, a self-promotion, a showbiz love letter, an apology, a middle finger, and a darkly-comic musical, all braided into an exploration of the five stages of grief.
The wind breathes over tall grass, gently brushing each blade. Insects chirp in the distance, forming a chorus over the hillside. These are the first sounds in A Hidden Life, the longest entry in Terrence Malick's catalog of existential, earth-gazing films.
Hud is a film with hard choices and few clear answers—and perhaps this ultimately accounts for its cult appeal among a youth culture who would soon usher in a morally ambiguous New Hollywood.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid frustrates me like family.
Paul Newman portrays someone whose love is all-encompassing, who loves despite and loves because. And it’s from this love that his Stage Manager is able to draw his remarkable combination of power and vulnerability.
We meet Newman's character at a disadvantage in The Sting, but because this is Paul Newman, and we know Paul Newman, it’s more than evident that The Paul Newman Show is about to begin.
Paul Newman represents a new type of cinematic soldier, one far more human than most portrayals of traitors are allowed to be.
Paul Newman truly was a Wife Guy—a badge of honor he was proud to display for a spouse as talented as Joanne Woodward.
Camera Buff is more than a narrative film with documentary elements; it’s a reflection on the documentary medium that uses the genre itself as a frame through which to consider its limits.
Who wouldn’t wish for release? A dizzying catharsis? A moment where the body no longer obeys but flings itself to the furthest corners of its reach and comes out dancing?
Break out the tissues: this month we’ve got a revealing one-on-one episode, with co-hosts Chad and Veronica swapping a medley of their most memorable & formative movie moments.
With Slap Shot, Paul Newman unlocked the ability to bring his inherent gregariousness and impish charm to the big screen, ushering in his most confident, natural performances of the coming decades.
Paul Newman represents a new type of cinematic soldier, one far more human than most portrayals of traitors are allowed to be.
When the faces merge in Persona, I see two people bound by loneliness and shame, to the point where they no longer understand who is who—two completely different people and disparate identities becoming one.
In Irving Rapper’s Now, Voyager—as in all great Hollywood melodramas—gestures are charged with the force of things that cannot be, desires that can barely be spoken.
Paul Newman truly was a Wife Guy—a badge of honor he was proud to display for a spouse as talented as Joanne Woodward.
Paul Newman portrays someone whose love is all-encompassing, who loves despite and loves because. And it’s from this love that his Stage Manager is able to draw his remarkable combination of power and vulnerability.
With a single cut between two nearly identical frames, we arrive at the turning point of Mildred Pierce—a moment of erotic fulfillment and desire realized.
Break out the tissues: this month we’ve got a revealing one-on-one episode, with co-hosts Chad and Veronica swapping a medley of their most memorable & formative movie moments.
Hud is a film with hard choices and few clear answers—and perhaps this ultimately accounts for its cult appeal among a youth culture who would soon usher in a morally ambiguous New Hollywood.
On Mads Mikkelsen's cathartic dance in Thomas Vinterberg's Another Round.
Demonstrating the parallels between Cyrano de Bergerac and A Goofy Movie is a tall order. But Goofy is a tall guy, and he didn’t come to Disneyland to not ride the rollercoaster.
Camera Buff is more than a narrative film with documentary elements; it’s a reflection on the documentary medium that uses the genre itself as a frame through which to consider its limits.
