FEATURES
THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS
By Kent Jones
With the help of Gene Hackman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, and Anjelica Huston, not to mention his usual partner in crime Owen Wilson, Wes Anderson has fashioned an epic comedy of loss in a poetically reconstructed Manhattan, a film that’s both outrageously funny and deeply moving.
Plus: an interview with Wes Anderson
FILM STUDIES VS. NEW MEDIA
By Alissa Quart
Film scholars, always sweating over their academic credentials, face a new threat: incorporation into an ever-expanding, amorphous blob called Media Studies. What’s a cinephile to do?
Plus: Paul Arthur on a New Media manifesto
AMÉLIE
By Frédéric Bonnaud
Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Gallic blockbuster, the heartwarming tale of a simple girl who turns everyone she meets into a better person, has crossed the ocean aboard the SS Miramax. Did French audiences collectively swallow a feel-good pill without reading the label? Our Parisian correspondent takes time for a closer reading.
LAURENT CANTET
By Amy Taubin
His previous film, Human Resources, depicted a working-class word in which loyalty is put to the test. With his latest, Time Out, Cantet dramatizes the same conflict through the odd personal life of one very confused human being.
PAULINE KAEL
By Paul Schrader and Howard Hampton
For someone who was so small, Pauline Kael cast a giant shadow over the national cinematic landscape, and the one thing her followers and her detractors might agree on is her extraordinary talent. Two writers, both personal friends, confront the loss of this prolific, mercurial, greatly missed figure.
ZÉRO DE CONDUITE
By Mariana Johnson
This year’s winner of the Grand Marnier film essay contest takes a fresh look at the legendary French filmmaker Jean Vigo’s 1933 classic.
VENTURA PONS
By Gerard Dapena
When democracy returned to Spain, cultural life received a shot in the arm. One of the results was the deeply personal and challenging work of this Catalunyan auteur.
DEPARTMENTS
EDITOR’S LETTER
OPENING SHOTS
News, Books, Jacques Rivette’s Guilty Pleasures
FIRST LOOK
Robert Altman’s Gosford Park by Graham Fuller
FICTION
“Man Overboard” by Bruce Wagner
SOUND & VISION
Jean-Luc Godard’s In Praise of Love by Chris Norris & Miguel Calderón, the bad-boy artist whose work features in The Royal Tenenbaums by Chris Chang
DISCOVERY
Dog Days director Ulrich Seidl by Stefan Grissemann
DISTRIBUTOR WANTED
Alan Rudolph’s Investigating Sex by Robert Horton
CRITICS’ CHOICE
Eight critics rate 25 new releases
JOURNAL
Post-9/11 New York by Kent Jones & Hollywood by Larry Gross
FESTIVALS
Vancouver by Chuck Stephens, Toronto by Nicole Armour, Venice by Chris Chang, New York by Phillip Lopate, Views from the Avant-Garde by Nicole Armour
REVIEWS
In the Bedroom by Paul Arthur, Little Otik by Michal Bregant, As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty by Brian Frye, Everything Put Together by Michael Koresky
VIDI VIDI VIDI
Dirty Harry by Gavin Smith
