Double, double oil and rubble: here's "Bleak Magic," my essay for the new @Criterion release of William Friedkin's magnificent SORCERER (1977).

RT @tnyfrontrow: Afternoons of Solitude, Albert Serra's fascinating action documentary of the bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey, is as aesthetica….

RT @tnyfrontrow: Kogonada's first feature, Columbus, from 2017, a surprise from the start with its very title, has stayed with me more vivi….

In praise of Kathleen Chalfant, who gives one of the year’s finest performances in FAMILIAR TOUCH, Sarah Friedland’s superb first feature. Opens Friday, June 20, at @FilmForumNYC:

RT @JustinCChang: Pascal’s triangle: on MATERIALISTS, the latest from Celine Song, in theatres this Friday.

Pascal’s triangle: on MATERIALISTS, the latest from Celine Song, in theatres this Friday.

RT @tnyfrontrow: I read J. Hoberman's new book, Everything Is Now: The 1960s New York Avant-Garde (@VersoBooks) in a state of trancelike en….

I wrote about the stunning career triumph of Jafar Panahi's IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT and other films of political resistance and reckoning at Cannes 2025, with notes on PUT YOUR SOUL ON YOUR HAND AND WALK and MY FATHER'S SHADOW.

I came, I saw, I concurred with those who felt this was the strongest Cannes in years. Here's my annual competition ranking — a tougher exercise than usual and, as always, a provisional one. Hope to revisit many of these movies in months to come:

PANAHI D’OR

Jafar Panahi has won the Golden Lion at Venice (THE CIRCLE), the Golden Bear at Berlin (TAXI), and now the Palme d'Or at Cannes (IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT). He is the fourth director to win top honors at all three festivals, after Clouzot, Antonioni, and Altman.

I reviewed THE ETHAN HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER.

THE HISTORY OF SOUND: Folk-Track Mountain. #Cannes.

Was going to post this link later, but whatever, I’ll do it now: here’s a first dispatch from #Cannes, with notes on NOUVELLE VAGUE, HIGHEST 2 LOWEST, DIE MY LOVE and SOUND OF FALLING. More to come …

SIRÂT: Mad Laxe: Fury Road. #Cannes2025.

RT @NYMag: At the Cannes Film Festival opening ceremony, jury president Juliette Binoche condemned the killing of Palestinian photojournali….

But . the theatre is named after Louis Lumière! How can you ban large trains? #Cannes2025

RT @tnyfrontrow: One hundred years of New York movies, decade by decade, for one hundred years of @NewYorker:.

One of the year’s best movies is now in U.S. theatres: Jia Zhangke’s ingeniously retconned archival drama CAUGHT BY THE TIDES, which, for all its career-spanning intricacy, can be enjoyed, and indeed surrendered to, without an advanced degree in Jiametry.

RT @Popeyes: pope yes.