Based on 17th-century stories by the Neapolitan writer Giambattista Basile, who inspired the Brothers Grimm, one tale ends with a sting, another ends in triumph, and the third concludes somewhere in the middle. All of them linger.
In this intensely moving movie, long, lovingly shot sequences of the titular food fits perfectly in the genre of culinary-based films in which food has metaphorical, cultural, and even spiritual significance.
Once again, the Film Society of Lincoln Center leans on the staff of its monthly magazine, Film Comment, to present this annual series, an eclectically curated group of overlooked and perhaps underappreciated films. This year proves no exception to the typical high quality of noteworthy films from around the world, many of which are making […]
As has been reported often over the past year, The Revenant was a troubled shoot, where the budget rose to great heights and crew walked off over the unendurable conditions on location in the woods of Alberta, Canada, where the temperature went down to minus 40 below. To the actors’ credit, most of all Leonardo […]
The whiplash camera work of a faux-documentary. Actors breaking the fourth wall, staring straight into the camera with a what-the-hell bemused expression. All this plus the underlying cynicism with a smirk will immediately remind viewers of top TV fare such as the American version of The Office. As if on cue, that series’ star, Steve […]
It would be a gross understatement to say that I Smile Back is a bit of a downer. The film covers depression, drug use, and childhood trauma, among other things. The story itself is fairly straightforward, but it’s the main performance that makes the experience worthwhile: Sarah Silverman commits completely to an extremely challenging character. […]
England is famous for a long tradition of eccentrics and a tolerance of their idiosyncrasies. The Lady in the Van celebrates and humanizes the continuation of this quaint pattern through the last quarter of the 20th century, as embodied by the indomitable Dame Maggie Smith. Her Miss Shepherd is based on the real woman who […]
The World of Kanako is not a film that produces a lukewarm reaction. It’s pretty much a love or hate kind of situation. Of course, you can do both. Connections to films can be like relationships, and this is one you can absolutely despise loving. In fact, it’s a response the movie practically demands. There […]
Film Comment deputy editor and New York Film Festival programmer Kent Jones’s cinematic fan letter to the François Truffaut/Alfred Hitchcock’s collaboration, 1966’s Hitchcock: A Definitive Study of Alfred Hitchcock, may be the most effective inducement to pick up a book since Oprah’s Book Club left the air—well, at least for cinephiles. Film buffs who haven’t […]