Email Author J. Hoberman

Awards

• 2010 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published October 13, 2009

  "Let the Mild Rumpus Start!"

• 2010 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published September 29, 2009

  "Robert Frank's Real America"

• 2010 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published February 4, 2009

  "Why Hard Times Won't Mean Good Times"

• 2009 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published June 12, 2008

  "Deep Freeze"

• 2009 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published September 18, 2008

  "What We Learned About the Election in this Summer's Movies"

• 2009 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published January 24, 2008

  "Kill One for the Gipper"

• 2007 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published December 5, 2006

  "Mel Gibson is Responsible for All the Wars in the World"

• 2007 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published May 16, 2006

  "The New Disaster Movie"

• 2007 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published March 14, 2006

  "Anarchy in the UK"

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2008 Stories by J. Hoberman

• The Thief of Bagdad

  published December 31, 2008

  (Raoul Walsh, 1924). The most lavish of Douglas Fairbanks vehicles features all manner of still-impressive... More >>

• My Winnipeg

  published December 31, 2008

  (Guy Maddin, 2008). Guy Maddin’s confessional bargain-basement phantasmagoria transforms his wintry hometown into a city as mysterious as... More >>

• Vampyr

  published December 31, 2008

  (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1932). Dreyer's most radical film concerns a confused young man (his producer) who stumbles across a conspiracy of vampires... More >>

• J. Hoberman's Top 10 of 2008

  published December 31, 2008

  The year wanes, and the working critic is obliged to ponder the mystery of personal taste, per the Roman rap artist Catullus, "I hate and I... More >>

• 

  COVER STORY

  The Ninth Annual Film Poll

  published December 31, 2008

  All hail Andrew Stanton's WALL-E—even us! Sometimes, the movies really are universal. And so a major studio's mainstream,... More >>

• Mean Streets

  published December 24, 2008

  (Martin Scorsese, 1973). The quintessential American indie in attitude (if not production history), Mean Streets was the movie in which... More >>

• A Lonely Woman

  published December 24, 2008

  (Agnieszka Holland, 1981). Agnieszka Holland's strongest film, produced for Polish TV, is a stunning evocation of ignorance, superstition,... More >>

• Everything Comes Together in The Secret of the Grain

  published December 24, 2008

  A tremendous critical success in France, French-Tunisian writer-director-actor Abdellatif Kechiche's The Secret of the Grain is a... More >>

• Waltz With Bashir, Doc and Animation, Bubbling with Repressed Violence

  published December 24, 2008

  Ari Folman's broodingly original Waltz With Bashir—one of the highlights of the last New York Film Festival—is a documentary... More >>

• Catch Baby Doll with Carroll Baker and Eli Wallach

  published December 17, 2008

  Elia Kazan was not known for his drolleries, although his sometime collaborator Tennessee Williams had a taste for the absurd. Together, these... More >>

• Nothing but the Truth Reimagines Plamegate as a Soccer-Mom Duel

  published December 17, 2008

  Ripped from yesterday's headlines—or, perhaps, given the scenario's emphasis on motherhood, from history's womb—Nothing but the... More >>

• Mickey Rourke and Darren Aronofsky Both Make Visceral Comebacks in The Wrestler

  published December 17, 2008

  The Wrestler may be plenty visceral, but it's no more a sports movie than professional wrestling is a competitive sport. Chronic... More >>

• The Gold Rush

  published December 10, 2008

  (Charles Chaplin, 1925). Including the dancing rolls, the human turkey, and the New Year’s Eve party where no one comes, this is the grand... More >>

• In the City of Sylvia: Pure Pleasure and Pure Cinema

  published December 10, 2008

  In the City of Sylvia is pure pleasure and pure cinema. The fifth feature by Catalan filmmaker José Luis Guerín (shown... More >>

• Wendy and Lucy

  published December 10, 2008

  Modest but cosmic, Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy—shown this past fall in the New York Film Festival—is a movie whose sad... More >>

• Steven Soderbergh's Che

  published December 10, 2008

  And so the endless campaign wraps up with a flurry of virtual leaders. Richard Nixon will always be part of America's dreamlife, with or... More >>

• In the City of Sylvia

  published December 3, 2008

  (José Luis Guerín, 2007). Pure pleasure and pure cinema, Catalan filmmaker José Luis Guerín’s fifth feature... More >>

• The Hustler

  published December 3, 2008

  (Robert Rossen, 1961). Solid and moody, this “adult” drama provided old lefty Robert Rossen a comeback of sorts; it also gave Paul... More >>

• Hartmut Bitomsky's Dust

  published December 3, 2008

  Over the past three decades, the German cine-essayist Hartmut Bitomsky has staked out a position at once lofty and material—making coolly... More >>

• Langella and Sheen Capture a Summit of Egos in Frost/Nixon

  published December 3, 2008

  I hear America singing and I see . . . Richard Nixon. Not the man, but the muse: Has any president since Lincoln inspired more movies, TV... More >>

• Fengming: A Chinese Memoir

  published November 26, 2008

  (Wang Bing, 2007). Unprompted and unrelenting, an elderly Chinese woman recounts her harrowing experiences during the 1950s... More >>

• Gus Van Sant's Milk Recaptures Californian Intolerance at Exactly the Right Time

  published November 26, 2008

  Gus Van Sant has never been a risk-averse filmmaker, but he directs his Harvey Milk biopic so carefully, there might be a Ming vase balanced on... More >>

• Scenes From Under Childhood

  published November 19, 2008

  (Stan Brakhage, 1969). Stan Brakhage ended the ‘60s with this glorious, two-hour plus romantic epic. He described it as an attempt to... More >>

• Sally of the Sawdust

  published November 19, 2008

  (DW Griffith, 1925). It’s a small irony of film history that humorless, moralizing D.W. Griffith would supervise W.C. Fields’s screen... More >>

• The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) Offers a Phantasmagoria of Wartime Indochina

  published November 19, 2008

  Some 23 years in the making, Ellen Kuras's first film as a director is a portrait of Laotian refugee Thavisouk Phrasavath. The Betrayal... More >>