Review: Scott Cooper’s ‘Hostiles’
“For all its attempts at dissecting human cruelty, there’s no human core to this story, which makes its 135-minute runtime feel twice as long.”
Review: Christopher Nolan’s ‘Dunkirk’
“As a portrait of differing wartime experiences, ‘Dunkirk’ is too plot-oriented to be successful.”
Vague Visages Is FilmStruck: Bill Arceneaux on Samuel Fuller’s ‘The Steel Helmet’
“Answers don’t come easy, but they do come if you’re looking for them.”
Netflix from 5 to 6: Daniel Barber’s ‘The Keeping Room’
“There’s no blaze of glory, but rather a collective maturation. Patience is their virtue.”
Tribeca Film Festival Reviews: Men with Guns – ‘Sweet Virginia’ and ‘Hondros’
“What ‘Sweet Virginia’ and ‘Hondros’ have in common is the notion that men with guns aren’t as brave or bloodthirsty as they seem.”
Vague Visages Is FilmStruck: Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Fear and Desire’
“‘Fear and Desire’ is more than just a curio for the Kubrick completist. It is indeed a genuinely revealing work.”
Review: Ang Lee’s ‘Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk’
“Ultimately, Ang Lee delivers a smart war film that offers a great deal of empathy to its social actors while still remaining critical of imperialist impulses in American culture.”
Why Criticism: James Agee’s Vision of the American Cinema
A Column on Film Criticism by Justine A. Smith
Sheffield Doc/Fest Day Three: Grey Skies, Surprise Guests and Uncle Howard
“Legacy can be a tricky topic for any perspective documentarian to cover, but when that legacy belongs to a close family member, and one who was himself a documentarian, it feels almost necessary.”
Of Love and Other Demons: ‘The Marriage of Maria Braun’ (R.W. Fassbinder, 1979)
A Weekly Column on Love and Erotica in Cinema by Justine A. Smith
Review: David Ayer’s ‘Fury’ Confronts All the Difficult Questions of Wartime Brotherhood
Q.V. Hough reviews David Ayer’s WWII drama, “Fury.”