Memory and Style: The Threads of a Collective Experience in Marcel Ophuls’ ‘The Sorrow and the Pity’
“‘The Sorrow and the Pity’ is surgical and functional, yet unquestionably a reflection of the imagination of an artist.”
Why Criticism: The Difficulties of Depicting Genocide in ‘Quo Vadis, Aida?’ and ‘La Llorona’
“Roger Ebert once wrote ‘it’s not what a film is about, it’s how it is about it,’ and it’s this phrase that I usually return to when thinking about cinema that deals with humanity’s worst impulses.”
Black Gold: Cinema, Wealth and Blackness
Brian Brems on ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, ‘Da 5 Bloods’ and ‘Trespass’
Review: Predrag Antonijevic’s ‘Dara of Jasenovac’
“Where Pier Paolo Pasolini pushed the obscenity of fascism to levels that go beyond cinema, to something further back into the subconscious history of art and complicity in aesthetics of evil, ‘Dara of Jasenovac’ merely rubs the audience’s noses in misery.”
Review: Roseanne Liang’s ‘Shadow in the Cloud’
“The ‘Shadow in the Cloud’ team acknowledges gremlin mythology with genuine admiration and respect.”
Kantemir Balagov’s ‘Beanpole’ Makes Oscar Shortlist
“‘Beanpole’ masters the unseen, the unspoken and the ‘presence of absence’ in the way it unpacks the toll of ongoing armed conflict through a kind of metonymic expression of experience.”
Review: Spike Lee’s ‘Da 5 Bloods’
“One of the most effective storytelling strategies in Spike Lee’s ‘Da 5 Bloods’ is the application of the simple and elegant dichotomy.”
Tearing Down the Monument: Sean Connery’s 1970s
“In my hatred for the Bond franchise, I feel I may have done a disservice to its star. I have always had a tendency to discount Sean Connery as an exquisitely sculpted statue, capable of filling out a tuxedo very nicely but little else.”
Review: Spike Lee’s ‘Da 5 Bloods’ Matters
“As always, Spike Lee asks all the right questions, and it’s up to us to recognize that even though the answers may not be ones we want to hear, we need to grapple with them all the same.”
Why Criticism: Nichols / Soderbergh
“In their conversations, Soderbergh and Nichols work together to dismantle the artificial dividing line between art and criticism, neatly moving between the two…”
