Joan Bennett in Jean Renoir’s The Woman on the Beach, Jack’s favorite film of this year’s Il Cinema Ritrovato festival In this recap of Italy’s recent Il Cinema Ritrovato film festival, Jack Miller showcases the unique offerings and exclusive screenings he was able to experience earlier this summer. This past June, cinephiles from all over… Read more »
Tag: Italian cinema
The Enduring Portability of Bicycle Thieves
Why do some films seem to get endlessly parodied, referenced, and remade decades after their release? Like the sequence of the baby carriage rolling down the steps in 1925’s Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein) or the eponymous “red balloon” of The Red Balloon (Albert Lamorisse, 1956), we see iconography from certain films repeatedly ported into others…. Read more »
History Lessons: Notes on the Italian Western
“The western is always the same, which gives the director tremendous freedom,” Jean Renoir, a director who never made a western, once opined. In this regard, the classical American western film, which reached its fullest peak of maturity and creativity in the 1950s, represents one of the greatest playgrounds that cinema was ever offered. Many… Read more »
The Exquisite Visuals and Murky Morality of The Conformist (1970)
The Conformist (1970) is a film of visual wonders that takes place in a world of moral horrors. It features some of the most beautiful shots you’ll ever see as well as very dark dramatic situations. But what makes this film so memorable isn’t just the fact that it is visually dazzling or expertly explores… Read more »
Physical Media Isn’t Dead, It Just Smells Funny: Criterion and Imprint Reviews for December, Kino Lorber Holiday Gift Guide, and Picks of the Year for 2022
Full transparency: all Blu-rays reviewed were provided by Kino Lorber, Fun City Editions, the Criterion Collection, Imprint Films, Arrow Video, 88 Films US, Dekanalog, and Vinegar Syndrome. Well, here we are everyone: at the end of another calendar year for this column and another incredible year for physical media. We saw long-awaited releases, upgrades… Read more »
On Pasolini and Pasolini
Guest post by Chris Forrester. Ask any cinephile what unmade film haunts them the most and they’ll certainly have an answer. Maybe it’s Jodorowsky’s much-obsessed-over Dune adaptation, maybe it’s Kubrick’s Napoleon – trumped by the financial failure of Sergei Bondarchuk’s Waterloo – or his version of A.I., eventually directed by Steven Spielberg in 2001 (of… Read more »