Le Garçu

From the archive, word on Maurice Pialat's last film, the all-too-rare Le Garçu, now readily available on @criterionchannl.bsky.social : www.newyorker.com/goings-on-ab...

Boy Meets Girl

And on Boy Meets Girl: www.newyorker.com/goings-on-ab...

Leos Carax’s Astonishing “Holy Motors”

Ecstatic cinema lives, in his films and his persona: Leos Carax is everywhere today: all day @ifccenter.bsky.social and Holy Motors @metrographnyc.bsky.social tonight; word on it and on It's Not Me (playing w/Boy Meets Girl):
www.newyorker.com/culture/rich...
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

The Misunderstood Maurice Pialat The hugely influential Pialat, whose films will be shown in a retrospective at the Museum of the Moving Image, was an anti-cinephile par excellence.

Great that most of Maurice Pialat's features are now on @criterionchannl.bsky.social; word from a while back on his strong and crucial but only mitigated influence on the French cinema, and why his films are so hard to take whole:
www.newyorker.com/culture/rich...

The Naked Gun is funny enough— because of its dialogue, and it's got one great conceptual gag (a setup to get a confession)—but just barely (scroll down); the bewildering general enthusiasm for it is a sign of hunger for comedy (awaiting a new basic idea):
link.newyorker.com/view/5bea068...

It's important not to assume one-word-fits-all greatness but instead to consider in detail what a classic is and does—perhaps better than the moderns can—and also to see what the moderns do that classics don't; peeved by upholding classics as bludgeons rather than inspirations.

Thank you; blushing; too kind; it's fascinating to dig into the methods that make themselves seen and felt in his films (Shawn Levy's biography is filled with salient details).

1. Daisy Miller
2. What's Up, Doc?
3. At Long Last Love
4. This Is Orson Welles
5. Allan Dwan: The Last Pioneer

The Enduring Power of “The Rules of the Game” Jean Renoir’s tragic farce, from 1939, scathingly denounced French society’s frivolity amid threats of war and fascism.

Taking the classics off the pedestal and engaging with them as if new: The Rules of the Game, Jean Renoir's effervescently revolutionary masterwork of life before wartime, proves even more powerful up close; coming to the Paris, and it's on the Criterion Channel:
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

Just saw that The Gold Rush, in the summer of its 100th anniversary, will have the U.S. première of the new restoration at @moma.bsky.social Thursday at 7; Charlie Chaplin, as scathing as ever, was never more tenderly romantic:

Movie of the Week: “Barcelona” Whit Stillman’s 1994 comic drama “Barcelona” takes place during the last hot days of the Cold War.

7/29/94: Whit Stillman's Barcelona, w/Taylor Nichols, Chris Eigeman, Tushka Bergen, Mira Sorvino
"They're against OTAN?"
More:
@janetmaslin.bsky.social: www.nytimes.com/1994/07/29/m...
@noelmu.bsky.social: www.avclub.com/barcelona-dv...
@tnyfrontrow.bsky.social: www.newyorker.com/culture/rich...

Mets’ offensive statement leads comeback to sweep Giants for seventh straight win In a flash, the Mets showed the offensive firepower Sunday that gives them a chance for excellence.

Too offensive even to paraphrase?
nypost.com/2025/07/27/s...

True blue (unretouched):

The Front Row: Greta Gerwig in “Yeast” Mary Bronstein’s 2008 movie features Gerwig in a droll, explosively inventive performance that showcases the revolutionary filmmaking of the mumblecore movement.

Another word (and video) on Yeast: www.newyorker.com/culture/rich...

Reviving a Modern Mumblecore Classic Mary Bronstein’s “Yeast” is a key example of how an indie filmmaker finds her own aesthetic.

Also: Mary Bronstein's film Yeast is at long last getting widely recognized as the instant classic it was too rarely understood to be at the time of its scant release; she'll introduce it today at @bambrooklyn.bsky.social at 5:
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
www.newyorker.com/culture/rich...

Why We Like to See Directors Talking For some filmmakers, interviews are a parallel creation to savor at length, apart from any of their specific movies that might be under discussion.

Meant to say, kudos to @cinemiasma.bsky.social for the teeming Barbara Loden series at Anthology Film Archives; the clip of her w/John Lennon and Yoko Ono on the Mike Douglas Show (6:15pm tonight) reminded me that I'd mentioned it in this piece on the wider context:
www.newyorker.com/culture/rich...

Wind Across the Everglades

Nicholas Ray's Wind Across the Everglades: crude, wild, obsessed, reckless, tragic: at Metrograph at 1:50pm in 35mm.:
www.newyorker.com/goings-on-ab...

YouTube video by Stanley Turrentine - Topic Wahoo (aka Stanley's Blues)

Evening listening: Mr. Natural, with Stanley Turrentine and Lee Morgan inspired throughout (here, Wahoo, in a jaunty 5/4): www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCub...

A couple of additional words about Wanda and Barbara Loden (and Nathalie Léger's book Suite for Barbara Loden):
www.newyorker.com/culture/rich...
www.newyorker.com/culture/rich...

Wanda

The terrific series The World of Barbara Loden starts tonight at @anthologyfilm.bsky.social with Wanda at 6:30pm and Katja Raganelli's documentary I Am Wanda (scroll down) at 9:15pm...
www.newyorker.com/goings-on-ab...
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

Summer Is the Time for Off Broadway Comedy Also: Superheroic sentimentality in “The Fantastic Four,” the popular crowd goes down in “Heathers: The Musical,” the arcane mythology of Lord Huron, and more.

Two movies in Goings On— The Fantastic Four: First Steps (baby food, as mushy as the new Superman, with which it oddly intersects) and Souleymane's Story (opens 8/1), which sharply and movingly maps a migrant's life on a grid of agonizing practicalities:
www.newyorker.com/culture/goin...

Thanks very much for word; grateful to know that the love came through.

*a* fascinating.. .

Thanks so much for word. That's an fascinating distinction; I find that the difference between a film's social role and the viewing of it is different for every film but that the essence is, someone wants people to see it, this is what seeing it is like—or, someone doesn't, I saw it nonetheless and—

In Defense of the Traditional Review Far from being a journalistic relic, as suggested by recent developments at the New York Times, arts criticism is inherently progressive, keeping art honest and pointing toward its future.

The Times's reassignment of four critics is one thing, but its downgrading of the so-called traditional review is altogether another:
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

Perfumed Nightmare

Perfumed Nightmare, Kidlat Tahimik's exuberant, faux-ingenuous, slyly ferocious personal comedy of imperialist fantasy and reality, at @anthologyfilm.bsky.social at 8:45pm in the regal format of 16mm.:
www.newyorker.com/goings-on-ab...

Spexus

An amazing story about a great career and great movies rescued by accident from the jaws of failure.

“Clint” Highlights the Artistic Modernity of an Old-School Man Shawn Levy’s biography of Clint Eastwood explores revelatory connections between the filmmaker’s methods and his deep-rooted world view.

Greatly enjoyed Shawn Levy's new biography of Clint Eastwood; its many keen observations are framed expressively, and it's shaped with subtle originality, conjuring a vivid sense of relentless activity, spontaneity, and contingency: 
www.newyorker.com/books/under-...

Eric Rohmer’s Tribute to His Younger Self

A couple of words about A Tale of Summer, a.k.a. A Summer's Tale, in which Éric Rohmer offers some of his most candid, albeit distantly retrospective, self-portraiture; tonight at the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research at 7:30pm: www.newyorker.com/culture/rich...
www.newyorker.com/goings-on-ab...