Category: Film

Rex Ingram’s epic 1921 production of the famous antiwar novel promoted supporting actor Rudolph Valentino to international stardom, thanks largely to his finesse in the tango scene. Reportedly, the film is a cut above the usual Valentino vehicle, but Ingram is one of those directors who’s built quite a reputation on the unavailability of his […]

2 hours 26 min

0 hour 11 min

It’s hard to dislike this 1983 movie, if only because of the warm glow of liberal well-being John Sayles’s work always gives off—it’s a chance to bask in noble attitudes. But Sayles’s talent as a writer isn’t well served by his efforts as a filmmaker. The basic affinity for the medium isn’t there, and he […]

The concluding chapter (1979) in Sergio Giral’s “Slavery Trilogy” is set in Maluala, the largest of the communities of runaway slaves that grew up in eastern Cuba. The film follows the negotiations between the Cuban government and the community’s leaders, who offer to lay down their arms in return for freedom and the title to […]

Frank Capra’s first crack at screwball comedy (1931), made three years before the style congealed with It Happened One Night. The forgotten Bobby Williams turns in a dynamic performance as a fast-talking reporter who marries a society dame (Jean Harlow, in a strange bit of casting). The tempo is there, but the gags aren’t up […]

Paul Robeson plays an unemployed stoker who sacrifices himself to save the lives of the workers in a Welsh coal mine. Pen Tennyson directed this 1939 English film.

A documentary on the role of women in the Sandinista revolution.

A documentary by Jill Godmilow (Antonia: Portrait of a Woman) on why she couldn’t make a documentary on the Solidarity movement. Frustrated when the Pol

British writer-director Peter Greenaway’s 1982 film is entertaining as an avant-garde exercise cleverly adapted to commercial ends. In 17th-century England a landscape artist makes an agreement with the wife of a wealthy landowner to trade his work for her sexual favors. All goes well until mysterious objects begin to clutter the grounds (and the artist’s […]