As human beings, our capacity for pattern recognition sets us apart from other animal species. Sometimes, however, our ability to identify certain patterns conspires with our imagination, preoccupatio...

“Hey, Johnny, what are you rebelling against?” asks a young a rube from Squaresville, USA. “Whaddya got?” replies Johnny, Marlon Brando’s leather-clad, emotionally detached leader of...

As someone writing about film in a time of political and social unrest, it’s tempting to read every new film as a metaphor for what’s happening in my country and throughout the rest of the world. Admi...

After unbridled celebration, followed by backlash that threatened to delegitimize its legacy, and then ongoing debate about its worth, James Cameron’s Titanic, a tale of romance and shipwreck, remains...

Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding is about everything. Part romantic comedy, part social realism, part Bollywood musical, it explores a large canvas, a multitude of characters, and a wide variety of filmmak...

Once Were Warriors opens with an idyllic image of the New Zealand coast and the country’s natural, mythical beauty. In a familiar but no less effective visual device, the shot pulls back to reveal the...

The Guilty seems to exist so critics can use the word “taut” to describe its thrills. Indeed, this is the very definition of a taut thriller in the pull quote style of film criticism. It’s lean, effic...

Something about transitioning into middle age makes a person feel older, if only because the promise of youth was not so long ago. People entering their forties, or even late thirties, still feel conn...

Catch-22 rethought the notion of American heroes and wartime virtue for the counterculture movement of the 1960s. Americans think of World War II as a “Good War,” where its heroic boys fought wi...