Summer Hours (2008) A Film by Olivier Assayas

Early on in Olivier Assayas' Summer Hours , a group of young kids, the grandchildren of an old and widowed art collector named Hélène (E...

Screening Notes #4

The best few weeks of filmgoing I’ve had in a while are also, due to a generally busy schedule and lack of time, the worst weeks for product...

Minority Report (2002) A Film by Steven Spielberg

The more I think about Steven Spielberg, the more I feel he is, at heart, a sci-fi director. As hinted at by his statement that he "dre...

The Conversation (1974) A Film by Francis Ford Coppola

For a medium that is so universally hailed as a “visual art”, the resource of sound that is employed in cinema can be routinely neglected. W...

Screening Notes #3

The Others (2001): Spiritually and structurally, Alejandro Amenábar takes pains to emulate The Shining (the displaced mansion, the final a...

Heartbeats (Les Amours Imaginaires) A Film by Xavier Dolan (2010)

Xavier Dolan's Heartbeats - the Canadian wunderkind's second feature at an astonishing 21 years of age - exists in a milieu where l...

Cyrus (2010) A Film by Mark and Jay Duplass

The Duplass brothers have a knack for first acts, that prolonged down-in-the-dumps segment where the plot is free to go wherever it pleases ...