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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2010 Stories by J. Hoberman

• Nothing Is Holy (Holy! Holy!) in Howl

  published September 22, 2010

  As suggested by its title, Allen Ginsberg's game-changing poem "Howl" is essentially performative—and so is Howl, the... More >>

• 

  COVER STORY

  New York Film Festival: The Hype and the Substance

  published September 22, 2010

  NYFF 2010 package: Fincher's "Social Network", More >>

• Leaves of Grass, Up in Smoke

  published September 15, 2010

  Finally opening after months of delay and a last-minute pull from theaters, Leaves of Grass is an ambitiously high-falutin' pot-head... More >>

• Familiar Routine and Manufactured Dread in The Anchorage

  published September 15, 2010

  As Never Let Me Go touches on themes developed with far greater artistic force in Au hasard Balthazar, so C.W. Winter and Anders... More >>

• Children Sentenced to a Certain Fate in Never Let Me Go

  published September 15, 2010

  Published five years ago, Kazuo Ishiguro's massively praised Never Let Me Go is set in an alternate universe where life has been... More >>

• Claude Chabrol, 1930-2010

  published Sep 13, 2010

  One of the key members of French new wave, Claude Chabrol died this weekend at age 80, having made nearly as many movies -- almost all of them thrillers -- as years he lived. Like his colleagues Fra... More >>

• The Venice Film Festival -- That's a Wrap

  published Sep 13, 2010

  Back from the Lido, I learned that Somewhere, Sofia Coppola's slight, stringent, not-quite sentimental tale of a movie star on the edge of a nervous breakdown and the 11-year-old daughter that loves h... More >>

• Venice Midpoint: Women Rule

  published Sep 07, 2010

  Midway through the Venice film festival, the competition is notable for a pair of features by American women: Sofia Coppola's Somewhere and Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff -- both minimalist, open-end... More >>

• After More Than a Decade, Hitler Comes to Town

  published September 8, 2010

  Devoted in part to the presentation of "unshowable" movies, Anthology Film Archives has become the unofficial New York venue for one of the... More >>

• Wish You Were Here: Venice Film Festival Opens With "Mickey Rourke in a Tutu"

  published Sep 03, 2010

  The 67th Venice Film Festival, where I'm currently on jury duty (although not on the jury headed by Quentin Tarantino) opened majorly pop with Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky's warmly received and border... More >>

• Last Train Home Focuses on a Single Family Caught up in World's Largest Mass Immigration

  published September 1, 2010

  Seen this spring at "New Directors/New Films," Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Lixin Fan's prize-winning documentary Last Train Home is an... More >>

• Our Beloved Month of August Is Neither Narrative Nor Documentary

  published September 1, 2010

  At once laid-back and tricky, Our Beloved Month of August—the second feature by 38-year-old Portuguese filmmaker and former film... More >>

• All Talk: Eric Rohmer Lives On

  published August 18, 2010

  Nothing is quite as simple as it seems in the films of Eric Rohmer. Nor, perhaps, as complicated. As John Ford was to Westerns, so Rohmer was... More >>

• The Problem With 3-D

  published August 11, 2010

  Is this the year? Are we finally witnessing Total Cinema, the first stirrings of Huxley's feelies, the apotheosis and—as suggested by the... More >>

• New York Times Continues to Backpedal on 'Grimmest' NY Film Festival

  published Aug 09, 2010

  A few months back, we noted an interesting discrepancy in the New York Times coverage of the last New York Film Festival. While critics A.O. Scott and Stephen Holden were unusually harsh in their cha... More >>

• An Israeli Tank Rolls North, Fumbling to War, in Lebanon

  published August 4, 2010

  Lebanon, written and directed by Samuel Maoz, is not just the year's most impressive first feature but also the strongest new movie of... More >>

• Brooklyn's Own King of Chutzpah, Phil Silvers, Now on DVD

  published July 27, 2010

  As summer was once the rerun season, let us hail the sitcom geniuses of the 1950s: Lucille Ball, Jackie Gleason, and the Great One's Brooklyn... More >>

• Todd Solondz Returns With Life During Wartime

  published July 20, 2010

  Elegant opening credits, written as if it were calligraphy on a wedding invitation, yield to a couple in blunt close-up—unhappy,... More >>

• Almost Paradise: Inferno's Hell, Alamar's Heaven

  published July 13, 2010

  Henri-Georges Clouzot (1907–1977) once personified a commercial cinema of quality, having produced and directed France's two great... More >>

• Winnebago Man: YouTube Hero. Or Zero.

  published July 6, 2010

  Opening with a deeply sincere "I don't give a fuck!" Austin filmmaker Ben Steinbauer's investigative doc Winnebago Man sets out to prove... More >>

• Lesbian Family Values in The Kids Are All Right

  published July 6, 2010

  Serious comedy, powered by an enthusiastic cast and full of good-natured innuendo, Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right gives... More >>

• John Woo's Red Cliff, Uncut

  published June 29, 2010

  The prodigal son's prodigal film returns in its original form, if only for a day: John Woo's uncut, nearly-five-hour-long Red Cliff, the... More >>

• The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector, Pop Mastermind and Raging Ego

  published June 29, 2010

  A feature-length portrait of a pop music genius as (pre-)convicted murderer, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector lives up to its... More >>

• Classic Power Plays in Jules Dassin's The Law

  published June 22, 2010

  Those more amused by kitsch than kitchy-koo are directed to The Law—a vintage 1960 French-Italian co-production directed by the... More >>

• Alain Resnais Does His Carrot-Topped Muse No Favors in Wild Grass

  published June 22, 2010

  Alain Resnais's Wild Grass has plenty of fans—it copped an award at Cannes in 2009 and was tapped to open last year's New York... More >>