Drama Rated R
"…the bodily invasions are not only reflective of a psychological state, but of a socioeconomic one as well."
Drama Rated NR
"…registers less as a drama than as a filmed scientific experiment."
If the cinema had a face, it would have to be that of Maria Falconetti. As the star – the celestial center, really – of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s dramatization of the trial of Joan of Arc, Falconetti is a religious icon come to life. This makes her performance sound operatic, yet what’s astonishing is how
It’s a bit of a slow boil, but this 1943 melodrama eventually bubbles over with Bette Davis literally trying to shake some sense into Miriam Hopkins. Although that’s when things get really fun, this is actually fairly good throughout. Davis plays Kit Marlowe, a critically respected but commercially unreliable novelist who returns to her hometown
Drama Rated PG
“…reveals pockets of empathy existing in defiance of Iran’s oppressive regime.”
What is a movie? What is a documentary? What role does cinema play in our lives? I have one more question for you: Can an engrossing narrative film be made out of such meta concerns? Yes, at least in the hands of Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami. Close-Up is an exercise in film theory, but thankfully
"Whatever you’re told this movie is about, remember it’s about Phoenix’s face first."
A young woman gets caught in the midst of a married couple’s domestic drama when she’s hired to clean their apartment in Fireworks Wednesday, from writer-director Asghar Farhadi. The maid (Taraneh Alidoosti) is on the verge of being married herself, but she’d be forgiven for changing her mind at the end of this day. Used
Still ahead of its time. It isn’t only that writer-director and co-star Jean Renoir pioneered crucial cinematic techniques (he used deep focus here two years before Orson Welles employed it in Citizen Kane), it’s that the film has an attitude of empathetic enlightenment that remains a rarity. The first third of The Rules of the
The two dominant strands of post-revolution Iranian cinema – quaint neorealism and thick meta theory – come together in this wily experiment from writer-director-editor Jafar Panahi. The Mirror begins as the simple tale of Mina (Mina Mohammad Khani), a little girl whose mother is late to pick her up from school. Setting her face in
