Email Author Jim Hoberman

2010 Stories by Jim Hoberman

• Elevator to the Gallows

  published December 29, 2010

  Dir. Louis Malle (1957). Louis Malle’s schematic thriller, starring the young Jean Moreau as a wanton wife looking to dispose of her... More >>

• The Exiles

  published December 29, 2010

  Dir. Kent Mackenzie (1961). Kent Mackenzie’s lone feature is a neo-realist account of displaced Native Americans that has a powerful sense of... More >>

• The Red Chapel

  published December 29, 2010

  Dir. Mads Brügger (2009). Something like Lars von Trier’s Idiots transposed to North Korea, Danish documentarian Mads... More >>

• Whither Germany?

  published December 29, 2010

  Dir. Slatan Dadow (1932).      Although lacking in satiric humor, Kuhle Wampe (Whither Germany), written by... More >>

• Last Train Home

  published December 29, 2010

  Dir. Lixin Fan (2010). An intimate portrait of an unfathomable immensity, Lixin Fan’s documentary focusing on a single family caught up in... More >>

• Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler

  published December 29, 2010

  Dir. Fritz Lang (1922). Pulp genius Fritz Lang made cine-history with this Weimar epic, embodying the terrifying inflation of early ‘20s... More >>

• Pandora's Box

  published December 29, 2010

  Dir. G.W. Pabst (1929). Adapted from Frank Wedekind’s Lulu plays, Pabst’s best-known silent is itself something of a Chinese box. Is the... More >>

• Last Tango in Paris

  published December 29, 2010

  Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci (1973). The last Euro art film to impact on American cine-mores is less classic than classified ad: A 20-year-old French... More >>

• Three Loves

  published December 29, 2010

  Dir. Kurt Bernhardt (1929). Marlene Dietrich made her first movie appearance as a Garboesque fatal woman. Kurt Bernhardt directed this silent... More >>

• Strike

  published December 29, 2010

  Dir. Sergei Eisenstein (1924). Sergei Eisenstein made a stunning debut with the wildly theatrical, open-air expressionism of this genuinely... More >>

• The Boy With Green Hair

  published December 22, 2010

  Dir. Joseph Losey (1949). A number of future blacklistees, including the director Joseph Losey, collaborated on Losey's first feature-a bizarre... More >>

• Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song

  published December 22, 2010

  Dir. Melvin Van Peebles (1971). Shot in a rough and ready style suggesting Stan Brakhage verite (and distributed like a porn film, complete with... More >>

• The Music Room

  published December 22, 2010

  Dir. Satyajit Ray (1960). Ray's masterful follow-up to his epochal "Apu Trilogy" is something like a neo-realist Chekhovian Indian musical-a sui... More >>

• The River

  published December 22, 2010

  Dir. Jean Renoir (1950). Renoir's ravishing first color film, shot on location in Bengal, is an appropriately stilted account of a English girl's... More >>

• Letter from an Unknown Woman

  published December 22, 2010

  Dir. Max Ophuls (1948). Although mangled by its studio, this heroically masochistic weepie remains the most heartbreaking of Ophuls's Hollywood... More >>

• A Crazy Idea

  published December 22, 2010

  Dir. Kurt Gerron (1932). This lively musical trifle, set in a fraudulent winter-sport hotel, is distinguished by its energetic dance numbers (one... More >>

• The Kids Are All Right

  published December 22, 2010

  Dir. Lisa Cholodenko (2010) Serious comedy, full of good-natured innuendo, The Kids Are All Right gives adolescent coming-of-age and the... More >>

• Never Let Me Go

  published December 22, 2010

  Dir. Mark Romanek (2010). Pervaded by a cosmic wistfulness, this smooth, if unsubtle, adaption of Kazuo Ishiguro's massively praised novel is more... More >>

• Army of Shadows

  published December 22, 2010

  Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville (1969). Jean-Pierre Melville fully achieved his notion of the sublime by employing the methodical suspense, cosmic... More >>

• The Strange Case of Angelica

  published December 22, 2010

  Dir. Manoel de Oliviera (2010). A strange case to be sure, De Oliviera's latest last film is as funny and peculiar as its title promises. Putting... More >>

• Fists in the Pocket

  published December 15, 2010

  Dir. Marco Bellocchio (1965). Marco Bellocchio’s startling debut—a visceral case study of a wildly dysfunctional bourgeois... More >>

• Shoah

  published December 15, 2010

  Dir. Claude Lanzmann (1985). The enormity of Claude Lanzmann’s mission and the devastating nature of his subject matter have tended to... More >>

• Pandora and the Flying Dutchman

  published December 15, 2010

  Dir. Albert Lewin (1952). Turgid yet haunting, Albert Lewin’s consciously surrealist romance is a garishly technicolor precursor to... More >>

• Bonjour Tristesse

  published December 15, 2010

  Dir. Otto Preminger (1958). The teenaged Jean Seberg more than holds the widescreen in her misunderstood, post Saint Joan bounce-back, playing an... More >>

• Senso

  published December 15, 2010

  Dir. Luchino Visconti (1954). Visconti’s great, over-the-top prelude to The Leopard, an ultra operatic melodrama set in mid 19th... More >>