Screen
Home viewing: Beau travail
Released at the tail end of the last century, Beau travail was filmmaker Claire Denis’ fifth film: the one that launched her onto the...
Everybody wants to rule the world
For Nikola Tesla, it all started with a cat. Specifically, a black cat named Macak, a feline friend from Tesla’s boyhood. One day while...
Five steps to love yourself
Megan Bloomfield (Natasha Lyonne) is the all-American girl next door. She’s bubbly and perky, lives in the suburbs with her parents and is dating...
A matter of life and death
Everybody clap your hands. Soul, the latest feature film from Disney/Pixar, rolls credits with a new version of the Curtis Mayfield classic, “It’s All...
A foggy reflection
In 1998, Walt Disney Feature Animation released its 36th film, its first and only retelling of a Chinese legend: Mulan, the story of a...
‘This is how I win.’
Nothing
is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to
understand him. —Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and
Punishment
His name is Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler),...
All is grace
General Lorens Löwenhielm (Jarl Kulle), a middle-aged man with a lifetime of missed opportunities behind him, has come to dinner. Seated next to his...
When I paint my masterpiece
Consider the bus driver. Do you notice them as you board the Skip? Do you wonder what they see as the Dash rumbles down...
Streaming cat blues: Week two
Apocalypse Later: Harold Camping vs. The End of the WorldAs 2010 drew to a close, TV preacher and Biblical mathematician, Harold Camping, predicted the...
‘Every leaf, every ray of light’
“Someday we’ll fall down and weep, and we’ll understand it all. All things.” —Mr. O’Brien, The Tree of Life
For two weeks every May, the...
K for Kane
For many, it’s the greatest of all time. But when it was released 80 years ago, Citizen Kane was a death sentence. The movie’s director and...
An embarrassment of riches
Every year is a great year for the movies, but when was the best? Was it 1939, the year Hollywood gave us The Wizard...
