This is quite unusual, you know. We were in the elevator of the Stockholm Royal Dramatic Theatre, Bergman’s secretary (male) and I. In the elevator, going up, I was having my position made clear. You are very fortunate. Mr. Bergman is seeing no one these days while his play is in rehearsal. . .
If Brian De Palma were a new young director, Body Double would probably be enough to establish him as a talented fellow. But, coming from De Palma, Body Double is an awful disappointment.
I think about each of my films when I am preparing for them. I do an enormous sketch when starting. What is marvelous about the cinema, what makes it superior to the theatre, is that it has many elements that may conquer us but may also enrich us, oiler us a life impossible anywhere else.
With Chinatown, as with Rosemary’s Baby, Roman Polanski handles the mechanics of the plot with a ruthless brilliance that is immediately involving.
To enjoy Blade Runner, you need only disregard, as far as possible, the actors and dialogue. (And the score) The script is another reworking of a threat to humans by humanoids —one more variation on the Invasion of the Body Snatchers theme.
Four friends, all high school teachers, test a theory that they will improve their lives by maintaining a constant level of alcohol in their blood.
The Shining doesn’t scare. The only pang in it is that it’s another step in Kubrick’s descent.
The picture is virtually bare of Scorsese style, such touches, heavy or helpful, as the opening manhole shot of Taxi Driver or the opening prize-ring sequence of Raging Bull. I saw nothing in The King of Comedy that couldn’t have been done by any competent director. Cinematically, it’s flavorless.
Seeing Martin Scorsese’s new film is like visiting a human zoo. That’s certainly not to say that it’s dull: good zoos are not dull. But the life we watch is stripped to elemental drives, with just enough decor of complexity—especially the heraldry of Catholicism —to underscore how elemental it basically is.
The prehistoric family the Croods are challenged by a rival family the Bettermans, who claim to be better and more evolved.
The strength of 2001 is that it confronts our civilization with an alien one while preserving the mystery of their encounter. The black monolith appears both as a threat and as a sign of hope at three decisive moments in man’s evolution.
The documentary film “Active Measures,” explores potential ties between President Trump and Russia. The documentary details Russia’s pattern of election interference and their motives to influence U.S. election systems.
A young apprentice hunter and her father journey to Ireland to help wipe out the last wolf pack. But everything changes when she befriends a free-spirited girl from a mysterious tribe rumored to transform into wolves by night.
During China’s Cultural Revolution, a young urban student is sent to live with Mongolian herders, where he adopts a wolf cub.
A filmmaker at a creative impasse seeks solace from her tumultuous past at a rural retreat, only to find that the woods summon her inner demons in intense and surprising ways.
Wanting to lead an honest life, a notorious bank robber turns himself in, only to be double-crossed by two ruthless FBI agents.
The movie follows screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz’s tumultuous development of Orson Welles’ iconic masterpiece Citizen Kane (1941)
Orson Welles was movie’s producer, director, star, and dominating force, but “Citizen Kane” would never have existed without Herman Mankiewicz.
Miss Kael’s view of Citizen Kane is in keeping with what she has written before. It is, she says, a ‘shallow masterpiece’. That is to say, she concedes what is undeniable, the power of the film, but denies it profundity because its psychology is unconvincing.
An American man, played by Jim Caviezel, is kidnapped after a friend invites him to Cairo to speak out about recent militant uprisings. His wife heads to the city after hearing the news, determined to get him back.
“McCabe & Mrs. Miller” is a beautiful pipe dream of a movie — a fleeting, almost diaphanous vision of what frontier life might have been. The film, directed by Robert Altman, and starring Warren Beatty as a small-time gambler and Julie Christie as an ambitious madam in the turn-of-the-century Northwest, is so indirect in method that it throws one off base.