Hal Ashby’s work—and life—speaks for itself.

Viewed 20 years later, The Big Lebowski’s wry satirization of capitalism becomes more pronounced.

The Fisher King captures Gilliam’s spirit more than his craft, his heart more than his aesthetic.

Hell or High Water is appropriately elegiac for its subject matter.

Out of the Past (1947) is often considered the quintessential film noir; there’s a private eye and a femme fatale, themes of paranoia and helplessness, and the struggle against a cruel and uncaring world. Stark black and white cinematography works both as metaphorical indication of a character’s motivations and on a pure visual level. Though there are universal themes running …

You’d be hard-pressed to find a serious film within the past decade that induced as much kneejerk vitriol within the critical ranks as Terry Gilliam’s Tideland. Descriptors such as “vile,” “excruciating” and “unwatchable” were cast down from so high on horses that that the film was quickly buried deep down the rabbit hole. And all this came after the inability …

If Jean-Luc Godard is correct in his assertion that “at the cinema, we do not think, we are thought,” then perhaps a provisional clause should be added regarding a certain type of Hollywood film: we do not feel, we are felt. This defines the largest difference between George Sluizer’s 1988 The Vanishing and the 1993 Hollywood remake he also directed, …

Robert De Niro in Analyze This “We all got our jobs to do,” said Robert De Niro, probably the finest living actor, accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award at this month’s Golden Globes. True enough, Bob, and your paycheck you took home for Analyze This must have been enormous. De Niro’s talent is such a waste in the …

Tron: Legacy Dir: Joseph Kosinski Rating: 3.8/5.0 Walt Disney Pictures 127 Minutes Let’s get one thing straight: Tron is a children’s movie. Tron: Legacy is not. The 28-year-later sequel to classic sci-fi film Tron (in which non-titular protagonist Jeff Bridges is swept into a strange computer world of gladiatorial jai alai) is dark and gloomy where the original largely kept …

Get swept up in the trash you know you shouldn’t love. But somehow these cinematic wretches, warts and all, still warm our hearts. About a year ago, I wrote a short piece explaining why 1982’s science fiction action film Tron is not a good movie. I maintain that opinion: it’s a silly, ridiculous movie with over-the-top acting, a premise that …