Who is Frank talking to? That was the question posed as a group of us exited The Irishman. One was a film programmer, the other four: film professors—the fixating kind. But the question was valid. Who is Frank Sheeran (Robert De … Continue reading THE IRISHMAN
New Zealand filmmaker Taiki Waititi really likes working with kids. Yes, there’s something amusing about a kid trying to act years beyond their age—or, at least, speak like it—and there’s something revealing about a child playacting in an adult world … Continue reading HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE
His name might not be as synonymous with the development of cinematic grammar as Alice Guy-Blaché, Orson Welles, or Jean-Luc Godard, but experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage’s ripples are still felt in contemporary cinema. From The Act of Seeing With One’s … Continue reading BRAKHAGE
With the 46th annual Telluride Film Festival opening next weekend (Aug. 30–Sept. 2), now seems like a fine time to dig into TFF’s past and highlight a few recent masterpieces. Let’s start with 2017’s First Reformed, a movie whose righteous … Continue reading FIRST REFORMED
On August 1, 2019, D(onn) A(lan) Pennebaker, Penny to most, died. He was 94. A true titan of cinema, Pennebaker leaves behind a plethora of work, almost all of it falling under the category of Direct Cinema. His purpose was … Continue reading D. A. Pennebaker
History, by its very nature, is reductive. There’s simply too much to consider, too many players to figure, and too many stories to remember. To the victor go the spoils the saying goes. And when the history of cinema was … Continue reading BE NATURAL
I have Varda on the mind. And not just because she passed away earlier this year at the age of 90. Or that I just wrote about one of her best films, Vagabond. Or that the Alamo Drafthouse Sloans Lake’s Femme … Continue reading FACES PLACES
The Last Black Man in San Francisco’s Jimmie Fails and Montgomery Allen are Estragon and Vladimir. Only they’re not waiting for Godot; they’re waiting for the bus. Neither comes. Unlike Samuel Beckett’s two heroes, Fails and Allen get up and … Continue reading THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO
The Japanese New Wave (1956–1976) doesn’t get near the love the French New Wave does in cinephile circles, but that doesn’t make the work any less significant. A key entry, Funeral Parade of Roses (Bara no Sōretsu) from 1969, was … Continue reading FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES
Michael J. Cinema 
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