Great Movies
Features
The Great Performances of 2023
On some of our favorite performances of the last year in film.
On some of our favorite performances of the last year in film.
I have come to appreciate silence not as a sign of weakness or capitulation, but as a finely sharpened dagger that finds its way to the heart, every time.
A piece on Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, and Joe Pesci, and what they've meant to the career of Martin Scorsese.
A dispatch from the New York Film Festival on the latest from Arnaud Desplechin, Justine Triet, Lou Ye, and Martin Scorsese.
An article about the 41st Mill Valley Film Festival honoring USC Annenberg associate professor Stacy L. Smith and devoting 45% of its lineup to films by women directors.
Matt writes: I just returned from covering the 53rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic, where I saw some excellent films, and got the chance to meet many extraordinary people. The full table of contents contains links to my conversations with Terry Gilliam, Richard Linklater, Barry Levinson, Caleb Landry Jones, Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, Denis O'Hare and "Leave No Trace" star Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie. You will also find reviews of such unmissable titles as "Cold War," "Putin's Witnesses," "Girl," "Winter Flies," "Crystal Swan," "Museum," "Moments" and more.
A preview of the 53rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, running June 29th through July 7th.
Scout Tafoya celebrates Margaret in his latest video essay about maligned masterpieces.
A guide to the latest and greatest on Blu-ray and streaming services, including Ex Machina, It Follows, Clouds of Sils Maria, What We do in the Shadows and more!
Kenneth Lonergan's "Margaret" was written in 2003, filmed in 2005 and stuck in post-production for six more years. The 150-minute version briefly released theatrically last year was an inchoate masterpiece, perhaps, but a masterpiece nevertheless. The DVD/Blu-ray release, July 10, will feature two versions of the film -- the theatrical release and a new "extended cut" by Lonergan that, he says, better reflects his current vision for "Margaret." As he told Indiewire, "The cut that was released was the cut I delivered. They're both the director's cut; they're just different cuts."
Paul (teenage Patti Benton's boyfriend in Paul Mazursky's 1978 "An Unmarried Woman" -- a specimen of living, breathing upper-class urban cinema that belongs in the same genus as "Margaret") would no doubt observe that Lonergan's movie is "flawed." (Or, as Patti says: "I liked it. Paul thought it was flawed.") And it is. "Margaret" rapidly unravels in the last third or so, along with the turbulent world of its teenage protagonist Lisa Cohen (Anna Paquin). I don't want to get into the plot or characters at all here (I want to wait until I see Lonergan's "extended cut"), but let me say that this movie features four of the most mesmerizing and complex characterizations I've ever seen in any movie: Paquin's Lisa, Jeannie Berlin's Emily, J. Smith-Cameron's Joan and Allison Janney's Monica (the latter a one-scene cameo).
Marie writes: If you're anything like me, you enjoy a good book cover as much as a good story; the best often speaking to inspired graphic design. Indeed, I know I'm not alone in my admiration...Welcome to "The Book Cover Archive" for the appreciation and categorization of excellence in book cover design; edited and maintained by Ben Pieratt and Eric Jacobsen. On their site, you can gaze lovingly at hundreds of covers complete with thumbnails and links and even the name of the type fonts used. Drool....
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Rush Limbaugh's so-called "slutgate" brouhaha reminds me of a scene in Kenneth Lonergan's great film "Margaret." After a heated classroom argument about 9/11, a student says: "I think this whole class should apologize to Angie because all she did was express her opinion about what her relatives in Syria think about the fact that we bombed the shit out of a practically medieval culture... and everybody started screaming at her like she was defending the Ku Klux Klan!" Whereupon, one of the teachers says that jumping down someone's throat when you disagree with them is "censorship." Lisa Cohen (Anna Paquin) goes ballistic: "This class is not the government!"
Lisa's point is significant -- and it's one of the movie's many sharp insights into how Americans argue. We have a hard time separating our personal feelings from the legal system, a conflict that's goes to the core of Lisa's moral dilemma. (And for some reason we think it's a rational defense to say that someone else did something just as bad but didn't get punished for it as much.) The classroom of teenagers, reacting spontaneously and having a free discussion (even if it became raucous and uncivil) was not an attempt to prevent, modify or control the expression of Angie's ideas, but an attempt (by some, at least) to refute them. And while censorship isn't limited to government, church, commercial or social repression, the phrase "freedom of speech" (as outlined in the First Amendment) applies to government restrictions on what "the people" can say.
