France, 1963. Three young women enter the club. Inside, they’re having a party, dancing to the music. The Cokes are in the icebox; rock ’n’ roll on the radio. The place is packed with students, the current occupation of the … Continue reading HAPPENING (L’ÉVÉNEMENT)
England, 1944: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger want to make a movie about an English bomber pilot and an American radio operator falling in love—in this world and the next. They envision a Technicolor fantasia unlike anything seen. The only … Continue reading I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING!
Most movies are a window you gaze through for two or so voyeuristic hours. Others are a door you walk through. Jewel Robbery, a 1932 pre-Code comedy, is like falling into a glass of champagne. The black and white photography by … Continue reading All Together Now: Dispatches from the 13th TCM Classic Film Festival
There’s a lot about The Northman that is ancient and just as much that’s mythic. It’s Shakespearean in its bones, but touches of Confucius, Sophocles and Wolfram von Eschenbach are never far from reach. There’s even a surprising tribute to Disney’s The Lion … Continue reading THE NORTHMAN
For the first time since COVID sank its spikey teeth into gatherings great and small, the TCM Classic Film Festival returns to Hollywood Boulevard for four days of essentials, discoveries, and anniversary screenings. The governing theme this year is, fittingly, … Continue reading All Together Now: Back to the Big Screen
There’s no such thing as an American anymore. No Hispanics, no Japanese, no Blacks, no whites, no nothing. It’s just rich people and poor people.” That’s the line David (a slick and oily Jeff Goldblum) feeds drug kingpin Hector (René … Continue reading DEEP COVER
A master among masters, the filmography of Martin Scorsese is nothing to sneeze at. Raging Bull, GoodFellas, The Irishman—you know the lineup. But what sometimes gets overlooked are the documentaries, a dozen of them, personal and nuanced works that play like B-sides … Continue reading THE LAST WALTZ
Deep Water is a preposterous movie. Particularly the ending, which crosscuts one character chasing after another through the woods and the young daughter of one of those characters throwing a suitcase into the backyard pool. Why, you ask? Well, to answer … Continue reading DEEP WATER
Istanbul’s Cerrahpasa Hospital, a state-run teaching hospital in Turkey, is as close to director Deniz Tortum’s heart as you can get. He was born here. And here, his father worked as a doctor. And here, many lives came to an … Continue reading PHASES OF MATTER (MADDENIN HALLERI)
Michael J. Cinema 
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