Every now and then—winter break, summer break—I purchase a new notebook at the local Blick intending to take up drawing, a practice far from my discipline of cinema studies. This notebook need is not driven by my usual academic hubris, which asks smugly, often with a shrug, “Really, how hard could it be?” but by something more feral and fervent. Like, if I could put pen or pastel to paper, something pure would pour forth, heart to hand to drawing. There would be color and expression and the ineffable, all in a scribble. And if you think I’m exaggerating: There […]
Our Summer issue cover story, Between the Temples filmmaker Nathan Silver interviewed by novelist Jonathan Lethem, is being brought out from our paywall today as the film arrives in theaters from Sony Pictures Classics. — Editor In Between the Temples, Jason Schwartzman, looking suddenly on the verge of middle age, and with a disconcerting new depth to his eyes, plays a cantor unable to find his singing voice. “The cantor who can’t” might be the hook for any number of lively (or annoying) comedies set in a synagogue, but Nathan Silver has delivered not only the version I’d actually want, […]
I shouldn’t have been surprised by the number of cadavers I saw—the four-day cruise was, after all, never about the destination (Cozumel?) and entirely about the journey, hundreds of miles through legally murky international waters with the promise of a lethal formula: “Hot sun. Cold cases. Unforgettable vacation.” A marine offshoot of the hugely successful CrimeCon, the 2023 CrimeCruise promised lectures from famous crime scene investigators, podcast hosts and a self-described “walking lie detector” to an almost entirely white, female audience that preferred to avoid sunburns, instead spending time in windowless lecture halls interpreting stippling patterns and keyhole-shaped entry wounds. […]
As I type this editor’s note, Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, which I’ve had on YouTube in the background, has just ended. As many of you already know, the flagship announcement this year had to do with AI. Apple has dubbed its use of artificial intelligence “Apple Intelligence,” which refers to its systemwide integration across Apple operating systems and apps, use of in-house tools and privatized cloud servers. Its rebranding of the term “AI,” which didn’t even require them to change the initials, is a clever marketing move, as it elides the fact that Apple has shunned the use of […]
There are few actors more well respected than the preternaturally gifted Julianne Nicholson. Recent notable credits include August: Osage County, Dream Scenario, Mare of Easttown (which won her an Emmy award), and, her latest, playwright Annie Baker’s first film, Janet Planet. In this episode, she talks in-depth about playing Janet in that remarkable film, her elusive preparation process, getting the environment to settle into her body, actually learning how to do acupuncture, why she lets her instinct lead the way, and much more. Back To One can be found wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Spotify. […]
Dan Licata has come a long way since high school, where he shattered both of his legs by jumping off the roof of a Buffalo church. A ferociously funny comedian, he has written for Saturday Night Live and Joe Pera Talks with You and recently performed stand-up on Late Night with Seth Meyers. His chaotically brilliant new stand-up special For the Boys (available on YouTube) was shot at his high school alma mater in front of a crowd of 15-year-old boys, the perfect audience for his arrested pubescent persona—a blustery Jackass-fueled manchild who desperately wants to connect with the youth but […]
The organizing principles of portmanteau films are often quite simplistic. A group of directors tackling a particular genre, for example, or films united by geography. An example of the latter is the straightforwardly-titled New York Stories, of which only Martin Scorsese’s “Life Lessons” is remembered much these days. Jim Jarmusch has made a few united around theme and setting — Coffee and Cigarettes, where famous actors sit down over a brew and a smoke; Night on Earth, where famous actors take cab rides in production-friendly cities around the world; and Mystery Train, where the stories are linked by a setting […]
In Civil War, the United States has splintered into four clashing factions, but if you’re expecting a treatise on the country’s ideological divide from British writer-director Alex Garland, this is not that movie. America’s dysfunction is secondary to examining the toll on the journalists covering the conflict. The story follows a quartet of correspondents (including jaded photographer Kirsten Dunst and green Cailee Spaeny) as they travel to the war’s front in Washington D.C. in hopes of landing an interview with the embattled president (Nick Offerman). Cinematographer Rob Hardy, who’s lensed all of Garland’s projects since the novelist/screenwriter turned to the […]
Every start of summer, the Cine Gear Expo comes to Los Angeles. Initially held on the Paramount lot, the Expo had a short stint at the LA Convention Center for two pandemic years before landing this yearat the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank. The movie lot aspect assists greatly with vibes: While its chief competitor, NAB Show—held a few months earlier in the Las Vegas Convention Center—feels like a traditional trade show, at Cine Gear you can peruse the latest lenses as the iconic Animaniacs water tower looms in the distance, just visible behind a camera crane which swings around […]
It’s somewhat apt to say that Osgood Perkins owes much of his cinematic success to Satan. His 2015 debut as a writer-director, The Blackcoat’s Daughter, explores the sinister presence of the occult at a Catholic boarding school in Upstate New York. He leaned into a gothic ghost story for his 2016 follow-up, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, eschewing devil worship for a clear nod to novelist Shirley Jackson. Longlegs, his third effort as sole writer and director, veers staunchly back toward Satanism, this time revolving around a series of murders committed by the eponymous killer. […]