Critic's Notebook

Critic's Notebook: Why 2012 Is A Banner Year For Found Footage Films

In 2012, found footage took a few promising steps out of the horror genre.

Critic's Notebook: How 'The Man With the Iron Fists' Proves We No Longer Need 'Star Wars'

At a screening hosted by the Museum of the Moving Image Thursday, rapper-turned-filmmaker RZA claimed his first inspiration came not from the martial arts movie but from watching "Star Wars." "I believed there was a galaxy far, far away where I could go," he says. "But instead, I went to Brooklyn."

Critic's Notebook: What Filmmaker John Akomfrah's Work Tells Us About the Present By Way of the Past

True to his post-colonial interests, Akomfrah's work blurs and re-imagines the distinction between video art and cinema. While his conceptual rigor and semantic preoccupations suit the immersive spaces of video art/installation, his lyricism calls for the scope of the big screen.

Critic's Notebook: What Does Iran's Oscar Boycott Mean For the Future of Iranian Cinema?

After the Iranian film "A Separation" won an Oscar last year, many people eagerly awaited the country's Oscar submission for 2013. But the sudden impact of the anti-Islamic movie "The Innocence of Muslims" ruined everything.

Critic's Notebook: Does Toronto Need a Shrinking Pill? Highlights From the 2012 Edition

No matter how closely you follow the buzz from the Toronto International Film Festival each year, chances are strong that you only get one piece of a very long equation. With nearly 300 features in its program, the festival is overwhelmingly dense, particularly during its first weekend. Even the mos...

Critic's Notebook: Being a Young Film Critic in Modern Iran

Critic's Notebook: Finding the Roots of 'Cosmopolis' In Don DeLillo's 'Game 6'

David Cronenberg's "Cosmopolis" adapts Don DeLillo's 2003 novel, though not exactly for the first time: The plot was originally conceived for "Game 6," a screenplay DeLillo wrote in the early 1990s which sat unfilmed until 2005.

Critic's Notebook: Why 'Bourne Legacy' Isn't As Mature As It Thinks -- And What You Should See Instead

There's a big difference between complex and confusing, but "The Bourne Legacy" confuses the latter for the former.

Critic's Notebook: Why 'Johnny Guitar,' Now On Blu-ray, Deserves a Second Look

Most 50's psycho-westerns look at the genre, its heroes and American frontier history they inhabit through a glass darkened by the realities of WWII. "Johnny Guitar" views the western through a Jungian kaleidoscope.