Essays and reflections on movies, their impact and influence, and the people who created them.
Every year, the Australian-based online quarterly, Senses of Cinema, invites writers from all over the globe to submit their selections for the best movies of the year. The top 10 you are probably familiar with at this point, but the following … Continue reading SENSES OF CINEMA: 2022 World Cinema Poll
How many times can you watch a movie before you discover its secrets? I’ve probably seen Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane more than any other movie. That’s not something I set out to do; it just sort of happened that way. Ten years ago, … Continue reading Fun with aspects ratios in THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI
On this week’s edition of After Image, I chat with Metro Arts’ producer Veronica Straight-Lingo about my favorite movies of 2022, trends that emerged throughout the year, and some prognostications about where things might be headed. Listen to After Image, … Continue reading
Lydia Tár is broken. Pulled from the podium, kicked out of her Berlin apartment, barred from seeing her daughter, the disgraced conductor returns to her family house on Long Island, pokes around her childhood room—perfectly preserved as if she were … Continue reading 2022: Accommodating for Others
The year is 1918, and Red troops are rounding up the White guards. War is on, and the insurgents are to be executed. But as the victors take their time playing by the rules of engagement, a fresh batch of … Continue reading The Best in 2022 Home Video Release
October marks the 75th anniversary of Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo’s refusal to answer the House on Un-American Activities Committee’s question: “Have … Continue reading HIGH NOON ON THE WATERFRONT
It opens like any other western: Sepia soaked still photographs of settlers in wagons traversing a wild frontier while title cards credit the actors, the filmmakers, and the dedication. Then the pictures begin to move. In the background, a lone rider … Continue reading BUCK AND THE PREACHER
I guess you could say the low point arrived on March 27, 2022, with the broadcast of the 94th Academy Awards. No, the “slap heard ’round the world” wasn’t it—though that cast a pall over the proceedings, didn’t it?—but the … Continue reading Cinema 101
Hollyn Patterson was born ready. And, as she jokes, premature, but that’s neither here nor there. Not yet, at least. Today she’s rustlin’ some beef across the Idaho hinterlands. And with Colie Moline at her side and a dozen dogs … Continue reading BITTERBRUSH
Michael J. Cinema 
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