FEATURES
BlacKkKlansman
By Teo Bugbee
Spike Lee’s eye-opening new movie, based on an unbelievable true story, finds the director again playing with genre to make us face facts
Plus: An interview with Lee by Nicolas Rapold
Sorry to Bother You
By Ina Diane Archer
Boots Riley’s cult comedy in the making is a brilliantly outlandish example of the new surrealism in African-American art
Bi Gan’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night
By Dennis Lim
The Chinese director of the breakthrough Kaili Blues returns with a metaphysical dream of a crime drama
Letters to Len
By Paul Schrader
The storied director-screenwriter of First Reformed unearths correspondence with his brother during the start of his cinephilic journey into Hollywoodland
Isao Takahata
By Violet Lucca
The Japanese master, who died earlier this year, gracefully proved throughout his career that hand-drawn animation need not be strictly family fare
Here Come the Drones
By Eric Hynes
The images they capture can be stately, bewildering, and alluring—so why are so many filmmakers using drone footage in the most banal manner?
Ingmar Bergman
By Olivier Assayas
On the birth centenary of cinema’s consummate Swede, a contemporary master wonders what we have learned from Bergman and what we may have lost
DEPARTMENTS & COLUMNS
THE PRE-SHOW | News, views, conversations, and other things to get worked up about
News, Inspired: Alice Rohrwacher on Happy as Lazzaro, Release Me: Ognjen Glavonic’s The Load by Jordan Cronk, Peevish, Directions: Jia Zhangke by Amy Taubin, Restoration Row: Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Hyenas by Max Nelson
CRITICS’ CHOICE
Critics rate and comment on new releases
MAKE IT REAL | The wide, wide world of cinematic nonfiction
Wang Bing’s Dead Souls by Eric Hynes
ART AND CRAFT | Filmmaking according to the makers
DP José Luis Alcaine by Manu Yáñez Murillo
FINEST HOUR | One actor, one performance
George C. Scott in Islands in the Stream by Steven Mears
OFF THE PAGE | The art of getting from book to screen
Jean Cocteau & Georges Franju’s Thomas the Impostor by Philip Kemp
PLAYING ALONG | Music and the movies
Ryuichi Sakamoto and Love Is the Devil by Daniel Witkin
FESTIVALS
Cannes by Amy Taubin, Kent Jones, and Nicolas Rapold
IN MEMORIAM | Remembering the cinéastes who have passed on
Nelson Pereira dos Santos by Violet Lucca
THE BIG SCREEN | Reviews of notable new films opening in theaters (hopefully near you)
Reviews: Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot by Molly Haskell, Eighth Grade by Madeline Whittle, Blindspotting by Tayler Montague, Madeline’s Madeline by Devika Girish
Short Takes: Support the Girls by April Wolfe, Leave No Trace by Nick Davis, Nico, 1988 by Margaret Barton-Fumo, The Captain by José Teodoro, Good Manners by Nicolas Rapold
HOME MOVIES | Cinema spun, streamed, and beamed
The current state of gay streaming by Michael Koresky, Allan Dwan & Douglas Fairbanks’s The Good Bad Man & The Half-Breed by Nick Pinkerton, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez by Justin Stewart, Cargo by Chloe Lizotte, The Changeling by Nicolas Rapold, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song by Nick Davis, Vigil by Maitland McDonagh, The Complete Hal Roach/Thelma Todd/Patsy Kelly Comedy Collection by Steven Mears, Wish List: Ruby in Paradise by Laura Kern
Plus: 20 discs to watch and 20 titles to stream
READINGS | Books about all aspects of filmmaking and film culture
Montage by Mrinal Sen, reviewed by Devika Girish; Bruce Lee: A Life by Matthew Polly, reviewed by R. Emmet Sweeney; Sterling Hayden’s Wars by Lee Mandel, reviewed by Mark Asch
GRAPHIC DETAIL | The art of the movie poster
Barbara Baranowska by Adrian Curry
