“A comically surreal masterpiece, Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel proves an enduring and lighthearted experience, time after time, each viewing influenced by the last, and each new symbolic theory dashed moment by moment.”
“Even if the focus on the jurors in ‘A Jury in Jail’ misfires, there’s more than enough territory left to explore as The People v. O.J. Simpson comes to a close.”
“MBFGW2 is like going to a Greek restaurant and ordering a sleeve of unsalted saltines.”
“The realism of Los Olvidados is balanced by striking moments of subjectivity, and they’re crucial to the film’s particular representation of urban poverty.”
“Thirty years after its release, the gender play, sexual politics and physical comedy shine as brightly as the 100-watt headlight on its star’s beloved bike.”
“With The Young One, Buñuel rejects the surrealism that would define his early films and almost all the European work that followed, presenting a rather straightforward narrative with superficial similarities to a Tennessee Williams screenplay.”
“It’s too late to force her way back to a seat at the table. She should have never tried to get closer.”
“I know I say this every week, but it must be said again: this is such a good season of Girls.”
“‘Cyclone’ is the most trying episode of Vinyl yet for anyone less than fascinated with Bobby Cannavale’s Richie Finestra”
A Series by Angelica Jade Bastién
A Weekly Column on Love and Erotica in Cinema by Justine A. Smith
“An unquestionably personal work, Day Out of Days exposes the inequity of Hollywood’s interior while highlighting just how important female voices are in telling the story of human existence.”
“American Crime Story has done an impressive job of imbuing well-known facts with enough intrigue to make them play like gripping fiction, and ‘Conspiracy Theories’ is no exception.”
“A once-pure appreciation of misplaced passion, the hallmark of so-bad-it’s-good entertainment has been capitalistically leveraged.”
“The extraordinary world of April and the Extraordinary World is no simple one, and it’s welcome that its worldview veers away from the simplistic.”
“The fourth episode of Girls’ still-terrific fifth season is the first point at which the end of the series comes into sharp focus.”
“There was a return this week, in grand fashion, of Horrible Coke Faces.”
“Eventually, Hood can’t avoid the chance to step up to the pulpit and offer a stance. But even as the film orchestrates its grandly emotional and proudly manipulative climax, it means nothing and everything.”
“True to form, the narrative beats of 10 Cloverfield Lane do unspool more than progress, but the difference is that they’re always based in character.”
A Jeff Nichols Retrospective by Dylan Moses Griffin