Reviews

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  Sacha Baron Cohen in Queerface for Brüno, Mumblecore Boys in Bed for Humpday

  What kind of comedy is this?

  "Heterosexuals can't understand camp because everything they do is camp," opined an associate of the old Playhouse of the Ridiculous, a theater known for its good-natured, anarchic sexual farce—a piece like Turds in Hell, which...

  By J. Hoberman

  Wednesday, July 08

  "Heterosexuals can't understand camp because everything they do is camp," opined an associate of the old Playhouse of the Ridiculous, a theater... More >>
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  Three Foreigners Who Made Baron Cohen's Brüno Possible

  'Borat was so 2006," the tagline for Brüno reads, but Sacha Baron Cohen's lavender Molotov cocktail is very 1882—the year Oscar Wilde arrived in the U.S. to give an infamous lecture tour that lasted 10 months. Wilde was the first foreign...

  By Melissa Anderson

  Wednesday, July 08

  'Borat was so 2006," the tagline for Brüno reads, but Sacha Baron Cohen's lavender Molotov cocktail is very 1882—the year Oscar Wilde... More >>
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  Soul Power

  "When you bad," boasts the young, beautiful, piss-and-vinegar-filled Muhammad Ali early in the documentary Soul Power, "you can do what you wanna do." The film, which takes too long to get to the meat of its matter, but captivates once it does,...

  By Ernest Hardy

  Wednesday, July 08

  "When you bad," boasts the young, beautiful, piss-and-vinegar-filled Muhammad Ali early in the documentary Soul Power, "you can do what you wanna... More >>
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  Truffaut's Mississippi Mermaid at BAM

  Dedicated to Jean Renoir, based on a noir novel by Cornell Woolrich, and an homage of sorts to Vertigo, Truffaut's frequently overlooked eighth feature isn't kid stuff. Mississippi Mermaid—sandwiched between his Stolen...

  By Melissa Anderson

  Wednesday, July 08

  Dedicated to Jean Renoir, based on a noir novel by Cornell Woolrich, and an homage of sorts to Vertigo, Truffaut's frequently overlooked eighth... More >>
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  Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg

  Did you know that goy god Steve McQueen got an early walk-on on a Jewish television sitcom? That's just one of the tasty tidbits in Aviva Kempner's celebratory but clear-eyed portrait of Gertrude Berg, the creator, writer, and star of The Goldbergs,...

  By Ella Taylor

  Wednesday, July 08

  Did you know that goy god Steve McQueen got an early walk-on on a Jewish television sitcom? That's just one of the tasty tidbits in Aviva... More >>
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  Blood: The Last Vampire

  After a couple weeks' worth of clever, what-the-fuck nuttiness at the New York Asian Film Festival, self-serious commercial pap like this Westernized fraud makes Dragonball: Evolution seem like high art. Korean actress Gianna Jun (formerly Jeon...

  By Aaron Hillis

  Wednesday, July 08

  After a couple weeks' worth of clever, what-the-fuck nuttiness at the New York Asian Film Festival, self-serious commercial pap like this... More >>
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  I Love You, Beth Cooper

  Did erstwhile John Hughes protégé and Harry Potter progenitor Chris Columbus fall behind on his payments on a sub-prime mortgage? Or have to pony up for an emergency organ transplant? Even if so, I'm not sure it fully excuses this...

  By Scott Foundas

  Wednesday, July 08

  Did erstwhile John Hughes protégé and Harry Potter progenitor Chris Columbus fall behind on his payments on a sub-prime mortgage?... More >>
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  The Vanished Empire

  Moscow, 1973: Not a wild and swingin' era, but veteran director Karen Shakhnazarov attempts the standard coming-of-ager anyway. Unable to take his Marxist history classes seriously, Sergey (Aleksandr Lyapin) runs around picking up girls, while rocker...

  By Vadim Rizov

  Wednesday, July 08

  Moscow, 1973: Not a wild and swingin' era, but veteran director Karen Shakhnazarov attempts the standard coming-of-ager anyway. Unable to take... More >>
• 
  Lake Tahoe

  Coming down from the Saturday sugar rush of his 2006 comedy Duck Season, Mexican auteur Fernando Eimbcke's lovely, Yucatán-set dramedy drifts by on a similar deadpan wave of static vignettes and lingering pauses that must be 10 months...

  By Aaron Hillis

  Wednesday, July 08

  Coming down from the Saturday sugar rush of his 2006 comedy Duck Season, Mexican auteur Fernando Eimbcke's lovely, Yucatán-set dramedy... More >>
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  The Beaches of Agnès

  The cinema, social theorist and sometime filmmaker Edgar Morin argued, is the model for our "mental commerce" with the world. Even awake and in the street, Morin wrote, we walk in solitary daydreams, "surrounded by a cloud of images. . . . The substance...

  By J. Hoberman

  Wednesday, July 01

  The cinema, social theorist and sometime filmmaker Edgar Morin argued, is the model for our "mental commerce" with the world. Even awake and in... More >>
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  Tony Manero

  Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain's alarming Tony Manero—named not for its protagonist, but rather his ego-ideal, John Travolta's character in Saturday Night Fever—is another study of a cinema-struck, solitary daydreamer, albeit...

  By J. Hoberman

  Wednesday, July 01

  Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain's alarming Tony Manero—named not for its protagonist, but rather his ego-ideal, John Travolta's character... More >>
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  Public Enemies

  "They're all about where people come from. Nobody seems to wonder where somebody's going." So says the Depression-era bank-robber-cum-folk-hero John Dillinger upon surveying the clientele of a chic Chicago eatery in a key scene from Michael Mann's...

  By Scott Foundas

  Wednesday, July 01

  "They're all about where people come from. Nobody seems to wonder where somebody's going." So says the Depression-era bank-robber-cum-folk-hero... More >>
• 
  "A Willie Nelson 4th of July" at Anthology

  If you hate Willie Nelson, you hate America. Happy 4th!

  In 1973, Willie Nelson—idealist, crass opportunist, and periodic genius—threw a July 4th "picnic" jamboree, envisioned as a "Woodstock in Texas." He's been saving the date since, though this year finds Nelson busy on a summer mega-tour.

  Anthology...

  By Nick Pinkerton

  Wednesday, July 01

  In 1973, Willie Nelson—idealist, crass opportunist, and periodic genius—threw a July 4th "picnic" jamboree, envisioned as a... More >>
• 20 Years in, Strand Still Releasing (Prudently) on the Edge

  Without the bold film distributor Strand Releasing, provocative work like Jacques Nolot's 2007 bracing hustler-memoir Before I Forget or Lucrecia Martel's upcoming magnificent PTSD oddity The Headless Woman would never have reached these...

  By Melissa Anderson

  Wednesday, July 01

  Without the bold film distributor Strand Releasing, provocative work like Jacques Nolot's 2007 bracing hustler-memoir Before I Forget or Lucrecia... More >>
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  Lion's Den

  Pablo Trapero's unpretentious prison drama wasn't exceptional enough to win the Palme d'Or at last year's Cannes, but what's downright neglectful is that his star/producer/wife, Martina Gusman, didn't skulk away with a Best Actress prize. Entering...

  By Aaron Hillis

  Wednesday, July 01

  Pablo Trapero's unpretentious prison drama wasn't exceptional enough to win the Palme d'Or at last year's Cannes, but what's downright neglectful... More >>
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