When “Schindler’s List” was released in December 1993, triggering a discourse Amongst the Jewish intelligentsia so heated and high-stakes that it makes any of today’s Twitter discourse feel spandex-thin by comparison, Village Voice critic J. Hoberman questioned the common wisdom that Spielberg’s masterpiece would forever adjust how people think from the Holocaust.
Almost 30 years later (with a Broadway adaptation while in the works), “DDLJ” remains an indelible moment in Indian cinema. It told a poignant immigrant story with the message that heritage is not really lost even thousands of miles from home, as Raj and Simran honor their families and traditions while pursuing a forbidden love.
A.’s snuff-film underground anticipates his Hollywood cautionary tale “Mulholland Drive.” Lynch plays with classic noir archetypes — namely, the manipulative femme fatale and her naive prey — throughout the film, bending, twisting, and turning them back onto themselves until the nature of identity and free will themselves are called into problem.
Like Bennett Miller’s just one-human being doc “The Cruise,” Vintenberg’s film showed how the textured look of the economical DV camera could be used expressively from the spirit of 16mm films in the ’60s and ’70s. Above all else, while, “The Celebration” is an incredibly powerful story, well told, and fueled by youthful cinematic Vitality. —
Opulence on film can sometimes feel like artifice, a glittering layer that compensates for an absence of ideas. But in Zhang Yimou’s “Raise the Red Lantern,” the utter decadence from the imagery is simply a delicious additional layer to some beautifully created, exquisitely performed and totally thrilling piece of work.
Montenegro became the first — and still only — Brazilian actor to get nominated for an Academy Award, and Salles’ two-hander reaches the sublime because de Oliveira, at his young age, summoned a powerful concoction of mixed emotions. Profoundly touching however never saccharine, Salles’ breakthrough ends with a fitting testament to The thought that some memories never fade, even as our indifferent world continues to spin forward. —CA
Scorsese’s bfxxx filmmaking has never been more operatic and powerful since it grapples with the weaning paradoxes of dreadful Gentlemen as well as the profound desires that compel them to try and do awful things. Needless to say, De Niro is terrifically cruel as Jimmy “The Gent” Conway and Pesci does his best work, but Liotta — who just died this year — is so spot-on that it’s hard to not think about what might’ve been had Scorsese/Liotta Crime Movie become a thing, also. RIP. —EK
She grew up observing her acclaimed filmmaker father Mohsen Makhmalbaf as he directed and edited his work, and he is credited alongside his daughter for a co-author on her glorious debut, “The Apple.”
Jane Campion doesn’t set much stock in labels — seemingly preferring to adhere into the old Groucho Marx chestnut, “I don’t want to belong to any club that will acknowledge people like me rae lil black as being a member” — and has spent her career pursuing work that speaks to her sensibilities. Ask Campion for her individual views of feminism, and you’re likely to acquire an answer like the a person she gave fellow filmmaker Katherine Dieckmann inside of a chat for Interview Magazine back in 1992, when she was still working on “The Piano” (then known as “The Piano Lesson”): “I don’t belong to any clubs, and I dislike club mentality of any kind, even feminism—although I do relate milf300 into the purpose and point of feminism.”
Most American audiences experienced never seen anything quite like the Wachowski bangladeshi sex video siblings’ signature cinematic experience when “The Matrix” arrived in theaters during the spring of 1999. A glorious mash-up in the pair’s long-time obsessions — everything from cyberpunk parables to kung fu action, brain-bending philosophy on the instantly inconic impact known as “bullet time” — few aueturs have ever delivered such a vivid vision (times two!
An 188-moment movie without a second outside of place, “Magnolia” is the byproduct of bloodshot egomania; it’s endowed with a wild arrogance that starts from its roots and grows like a tumor until God shows up and it feels like they’re just another member in the cast. And thank heavens that someone
Drifting around Vienna over a single night — the pair meet over a train and must part ways come morning — Jesse and Celine engage in the series of free-flowing exchanges as they wander the city’s streets.
A movie with transgender leads played by transgender actresses, this film established a different gold standard for casting LGBTQ movies with LGBTQ performers. According to Variety
Many films and television collection before and after “Fargo” — not least the Forex drama influenced via the film — have mined laughs from the foibles of Silly criminals and/or middle-class mannerisms. But Marge gives the original “Fargo” a humanity that’s grounded in respect for your basic, reliable people from the world, the kind whose constancy holds society together amid the chaos of pathological liars, cold-blooded murderers, and squirrely fuck-ups in woodchippers.