One of the wildest, most painful inside-Hollywood movies, Josef von Sternberg's The Last Command, from 1928, stars Emil Jannings, a tormented titan who inspired Lubitsch and Murnau, too); at @filmforumnyc.bsky.social at 8 w/live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner: www.newyorker.com/goings-on-ab...

After seeing Peter Hujar's Day at NYFF, I rewatched it (opens 11/7 @filmforumnyc.bsky.social & @lincolncenter.bsky.social) and it's even richer, more complex; Ira Sachs subtly and movingly turns what could have been a mere reënactment into a multilayered experience: www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

BOTD Sam Shepard!! Legendary playwright also a Bob-affiliate: pitchfork.com/thepitch/sam... W, star, in Wenders' Don't Come Knocking - @tnyfrontrow.bsky.social: newyorker.com/culture/rich... More: @justincchang.bsky.social: www.latimes.com/entertainmen... Patti: www.newyorker.com/culture/cult...

Vive la France today, with Jacques Tati's Trafic at @anthologyfilm.bsky.social at 7 (members only), a farewell to M. Hulot, and the philosopher of cinema Jean-Pierre Gorin's second solo feature, Routine Pleasures, at 8:30 at Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research: (links below:

Great to read that Carol & Joy, Nathan Silver's terrific new documentary, has been acquired by Janus Films and will be on @criterionchannl.bsky.social starting Dec. 1 (i.e. what counts, for a short—and for independent films—as wide release): variety.com/2025/film/ne...

Die My Love has a great cast that's left to flail by writing and direction that veer from informational (and not much of that, either) to sensationalistic; the silencing of its protagonist is a terrible misjudgment:  www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

Terrific news: Life After is now streaming,on @pbs.org and YouTube.

Jonathan Lethem's piece in @nybooks.com on One Battle After Another is brilliant—and revealing. He calls the film politically incoherent; I think the opposite: it clearly debunks the myth and fantasy of small-group revolution in favor of community-based, direct-assistance activism...

Jerry Lewis's supreme directorial extravagance, The Ladies Man, with a Tati-like set tweaked for the titillation and temptation of a secular monk in a secular convent, at @moma.bsky.social at 1: www.newyorker.com/culture/rich... www.newyorker.com/goings-on-ab...

Howard Hawks's Bringing Up Baby temporarily out-Freuded Lubitsch (That Uncertain Feeling retook the lead); @tcmtv.bsky.social at 8, but it should be illegal to show it without his self-remake Man's Favorite Sport?; word x3... www.newyorker.com/culture/rich... www.newyorker.com/goings-on-ab...

11/1/66: Jean Pierre Melville's Le Deuxième Souffle kicks off #noirvember [W José Giovanni] w/Mr. Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse 🙏 ++ More @tnyfrontrow.bsky.social: www.newyorker.com/culture/rich... Us midcenturycinema.org/2016/11/02/5... @alanzilberman.bsky.social: spectrumculture.com/2021/11/18/o...

Noting that The Tree of Life is playing today at @movingimagenyc.bsky.social at 1 in 35mm., recalling the shock that it gave to the cinematic system; in his sixties, Terrence Malick made a second first film (word x2: www.newyorker.com/culture/rich... www.newyorker.com/culture/rich...

In honor and memory of David Bellos, the author of a superb biography of Jacques Tati (plus ones of Georges Perec and Romain Gary, which I haven't read), at the age of eighty.

Happy Ghost Apostrophe Day from the People of the Diaeresis: www.newyorker.com/magazine/192...

Short word on the horrific greatness of Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr, a horror movie neither following nor transgressing genre conventions—simply transgressive in ways that restore the word's primal force; on @tcmtv.bsky.social 7am and @criterionchannl.bsky.social : www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

10/30/91: Maurice Pialat's Van Gogh w/Jacques Dutronc, Alexandra London, Bernard Le Coq More: @tnyfrontrow.bsky.social: www.newyorker.com/goings-on-ab... @evillights.bsky.social: cinemasparagus.blogspot.com/2015/10/van-... @railoftomorrow.bsky.social: criterioncast.com/reviews/blu-...

Marta Mateus's first feature, Fire of Wind (which opens Friday at @anthologyfilm.bsky.social) is a daringly imaginative work of political cinema—and part of a great modern tradition:  www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

10/29/63: Godard's Contempt [DP Raoul Coutard] w/Michel Piccoli, Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance, Fritz Lang Peak JLG @mrbeaks.bsky.social: www.slashfilm.com/1007193/jean... @mdconterio.bsky.social: cine-vue.com/2016/01/film... @tnyfrontrow.bsky.social: www.newyorker.com/culture/rich...

Hedda is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, which is its wide release; it's terrific and, while I wish it had a long theatrical run (I saw it twice on the big screen—it's even better the second time), hard to imagine it even existing without a streamer's backing. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Seeing heist movies mentioned; not seeing one of the wildest, most fanatically precise, and saddest mentioned: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.

Terrific memorial in @nouvelobs.com by Guillaume Louet of Philippe Collin's extraordinary activities—including his many years as critic for Elle, plus Truffaut's famous quote: "...I have to admit that a negative review by Philippe Collin or Pauline Kael brings up deeper ideas than a positive one

Nietzchka Keene's The Juniper Tree, based on a Brothers Grimm tale, starring Björk, filmed in 1986, shown at Sundance in 1990, hardly seen until 2019—another great film nearly lost to indifference, another career thwarted; tonight at Nitehawk Williamsburg at 7: www.newyorker.com/goings-on-ab...

Sweet dreams are made of cheese / Who am I to diss a Brie?

Top three Hitchcock: Marnie The Wrong Man Vertigo, alas

In honor and memory of Jack DeJohnette, whose playing I became obsessed with when Jackie McLean's unreleased High Frequency album came briefly onto LP fifty years ago—impulsively inspired and free accenting of his hard-driving beat; instantly expanded the musical future.

Chatting about The Wolf of Wall Street last night, elicited surprise by mentioning how poorly it was received by critics; look past the baseline RT percentage to see how many prominent critics splatted themselves when it came out.

My secret title for Blue Moon (go see it!) is The Night of the High Corn.

And João César Monteiro's God's Comedy, from 1995, at @moma.bsky.social at 4, with more explicit carnality and a sense of form in an era in which the concept had become fused (or confused) with formality—here, for clear and specific reasons: www.newyorker.com/goings-on-ab...

A couple of words on Erich von Stroheim's Foolish Wives, from 1922, a furious outpouring of bile in cinematic form and vice versa (with his own ragingly cold performance at its heart), at @moma.bsky.social at 1 p.m.:  www.newyorker.com/goings-on-ab... www.newyorker.com/culture/rich...

Carnival of Souls, Herk Harvey's only feature, from 1962, a low-budget horror film, is the era's closest thing to Americantonioni; it's on @tcmtv.bsky.social at 8pm. (ET): www.newyorker.com/culture/rich...

The release of Nouvelle Vague brings to mind some French New Wave classics, more and less familiar, that exemplify the spirit and are streaming (scroll down link.newyorker.com/view/5bea068...

Matt Porterfield's second feature, Putty Hill—an aptly ample, personal, exploratory follow-up to his first, Hamilton—returns tonight at the Roxy at 9:15pm—he'll be there for a Q. & A.; he and it are part of the core of modern cinema www.newyorker.com/goings-on-ab... www.newyorker.com/culture/rich...

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere trivializes the serious matters it deals with, including the music at its center, and, with its snippety and clichéd script, it gives Jeremy Allen White, as Springsteen, little to work with; nearly a total waste: www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

Two favorites are leaving @criterionchannl.bsky.social end of month: Alain Resnais's La Guerre est finie (unavailable elsewhere); Jia Zhangke's great, underappreciated documentary Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue (scroll down) www.newyorker.com/culture/the-... www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

Truffaut's production diary from Fahrenheit 451 is an absolute classic of cinema literature—and it may have harmed the film's reception: www.newyorker.com/culture/rich...

Speaking of BD-Boy Jean Pierre Melville - 10/20/70: The Red Circle w/Alain Delon, Yves Montand, Paul Crauchet More: @manohladargis.bsky.social: www.latimes.com/archives/la-... @crabin.bsky.social: www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/le-cercl... @tnyfrontrow.bsky.social: www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

In memory of François Truffaut, who died forty-one years ago (I remember; it was a shock); I think that his work is still largely misunderstood because some of his best films, foremost A Gorgeous Girl Like Me and Fahrenheit 451, are both uncharacteristic and hardly available.

Very sad to learn of the passing of Philippe Collin, the director of The Last Days of Immanuel Kant—a secret masterwork of precision and gracefulness, of gai savoir—at the age of ninety-three; I had the pleasure and the honor of talking with him on a few cherished occasions.

There's a welcome mini-retrospective of Youssef Chahine's films at Metrograph and one of the greatest of them, Alexandria: Again and Forever—personally confessional, politically confrontational, effervescently inventive—screens today at 7:15pm: www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

10/18/66: Bergman's Persona w/Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Gunnar Björnstrand More: Us: midcenturycinema.org/2017/03/09/5... @tnyfrontrow.bsky.social: www.newyorker.com/magazine/201... Elsaesser: www.criterion.com/current/post... Susan Sontag, long form: scrapsfromtheloft.com/movies/perso...

Westbound

This is tonight—in 16mm.! What About Me should be canonical (and for me, it is); looking forward to the screening and to the discussion with Rachel Amodeo and Richard Edson; at Roxy Cinema at 6:30pm: www.roxycinemanewyork.com/screenings/t...

Kentucky Pride, John Ford's great silent film from the perspective of an eloquent horse—comedic and tragic, Balthazar avant la lettre; at Japan Society at 3:30pm:  www.newyorker.com/goings-on-ab...

I've heard, here and from people I've talked with, that Hedda is basically a stealth release; really unfortunate, because it's wonderful and deserves much more attention than do many other late-year festival-darling Oscarizables (not least, for performances worthy of any others).

Hedda is the most exciting new adaptation of a play that I've seen in a long while; Ibsen is made for movies, and Nia DaCosta does boldly imaginative things with the text, the setting, and a cast led by Tessa Thompson and Nina Hoss; opens Wednesday: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Looks like The Mastermind is getting released in many European countries in the next few weeks but not in France; wonder whether some depressingly tepid reviews there from its Cannes première are responsible.

10/16/59: Jean-Pierre Melville's Two Men in Manhattan Featherweight . . . and Fabulous! Our take, via BLFJ: brightlightsfilm.com/jean-pierre-... More: Ethan Vestby/ @thefilmstage.com: thefilmstage.com/two-men-in-m... @tnyfrontrow.bsky.social: www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

Short word (for now) on Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident, in which a conceptual fiction provides an exceptional perspective on horrific realities; now at Film at @lincolncenter.bsky.social and Film Forum: www.newyorker.com/goings-on-ab...

Epic fail-safe: A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE is a high-minded piece of doomsday schlock — and a baffling misuse of the director Kathryn Bigelow's talents. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

Kelly Reichardt's The Mastermind is as startling in form and style as in drama and worldview; a quietly wildly original movie, a grim and giddy delight: www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...