Andrei Rublev: Before the Tsars

Photo: Mosfilm Andrei Tarkovsky’s wildly ambitious second film was shown in a cinema in 1966. The audience seemed to like it, but the Soviet censors refused to approve the epic…

The Last Emperor: The Chosen One

Richard Vuu. Photo: Columbia In the late 1980s, the Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci was decidedly an international filmmaker, having made movies in France and the United States. That year he…

Mank: Writing Kane

Gary Oldman. Photo: Netflix David Fincher’s father Jack used to be a journalist. And then he became a screenwriter. His first stab at a story about the legendary Hollywood screenwriter…

Hillbilly Elegy

When future Vice President J.D. Vance’s memoir was published, it was hotly debated; many believed he generalized too much about the white working class, using his personal experiences of one…

The Comey Rule 

As the 2016 election approaches, the FBI are investigating Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, putting Director James Comey (Jeff Daniels) in an impossible situation.…

The 400 Blows: This Boy’s Life

Jean-Pierre Léaud. Photo: Cocinor I do recall watching this movie in film class, but it didn’t have that much of an impact on me at the time. I find that…

Days of Wine and Roses: When the Party’s Over

Lee Remick. Photo: Warner When making this film, director Blake Edwards and actors Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick were still drinking. Edwards has described himself and Lemmon as ”heavy drinkers”…

Jeanne Dielman: This Woman’s Work

Delphine Seyrig. Photo: Paradise Films In 1974, Chantal Akerman made Je Tu Il Elle, a film where the lead character performs mundane rituals and then goes out to have sex…

Passion of Joan of Arc: Saint on Trial

Renée Jeanne Falconetti. Photo: Gaumont After making the film Master of the House in 1925, the Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer spent time in France and learned that he was…

99 Homes 

Unemployed Orlando construction worker Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield) is evicted from his home, along with his mother (Laura Dern) and son… but then he starts working for the man who…