William Tell is at once large and small. It is an ambitious adaptation of 19th-century theatre, and it is a bloodthirsty action movie; it is a…
“The art of interpretation is virtually one of translation,”[1] wrote Susan Sontag in 1964. But there is an impulse to resist interpreting that which is…
Put ecclesiastical matters aside, just for the moment, and ask the question: what is a cathedral? What distinguishes a cathedral from a parish church? Having…
I was driving to see the cinema’s latest love story and stopped at a red light. On an empty street, on a cloudless night, I…
‘Behold,’ the Fairy cried, ‘Palmyra’s ruined palaces! Behold where grandeur frowned! Behold where pleasure smiled! What now remains?’ — “Queen Mab,” Book II, 109-13 When…
Jean-Luc Godard was, and still remains, a giant — present as a critic and filmmaker from the halfway point of the last century all the…
‘Tis the season of list compilation. All through the land are lists being compiled: the annual effort to determine the canon of Christmas Movie restarts…
The Return of Godzilla was a haunting revival for Toho’s famous franchise. When released in December of 1984, the film interrupted Godzilla’s nine-year absence from…
The first two Will Hindle films that were shown in the complete recent Chicago retrospective Unknown Nostalgia (organized by InRO contributor and Tone Glow editor-in-chief Joshua Minsoo Kim) are…
In folklore on film, the peasant girl laboring for ungrateful people has been situated in several variations of Cinderella. One of cinema’s most active renditions…
In the recent Motion Over Pictures: Two Evenings of Fred Worden retrospective at New York’s Spectacle Theater (co-organized by Paul Attard and Stephen Cappel, with…
Last night, I had a dream. A marquee glowed orange-tungsten. Large black letters: JURASSIC PARK. I was there with my son Aphid. We were in…
In 1892, Ruth Belville took up the family business. It was a trade inherited from her mother, first founded by her father. He had innovated…
“What happened is true. Now the motion picture that’s just as real.” The theatrical release poster for Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror milestone lured audiences with…
Brad Dourif, known for his madman characters and many cinematic iniquities, is, it’s easy to forget, capable of staggering eclecticism. His career, unimpeachable, daring, perfectly…
As with all great films, crime dramas, at their best, are much more than the machinations of their dense plots. Some of these films contain…
Some say the banners of John Talbot flutter still, upon the fields of Castillon. But you did not stay to witness them. Honorable demise was…
Robert Beavers’ 18-film cycle My Hand Outstretched to the Winged Distance and Sightless Measure, comprising the majority of both his filmography and a recent 25-film…
Awaara was restored in 4K by the National Film Archive of India (NFDC) under National Film Heritage Mission, a project undertaken by the Ministry of…
Funny how tastes change. Grand Illusion was almost certainly the Renoir consensus pick for many years — it was a box office smash in France,…