|Courtney Kowalke| For a film reviewer, I have a big blind spot when it comes to Asian cinema. I enjoy the occasional Bollywood musical, and the Twin Cities Arab Film Festival keeps me up to date on the Middle Eastern movie scene. I am pretty ignorant of what’s going on… Continue reading
|Zach Staads| A quick note up top, this is one of my all-time favorite movies and I highly recommend you see it if you haven’t yet. Buy your tickets now, don’t wait. I have oft spoken about my love of theatricality in film (see my article on Kuroneko’s theatrical lighting style her)… Continue reading
|Chris Polley| Borders are fake, but people are real. Director Carol Reed knew this better than most others who have trafficked in spy thrillers and political noir over the years. And while The Man Between is typically less regarded than his prior masterpieces The Third Man… Continue reading
|Chris Polley| Breaking up families, the oppressed becoming the oppressor, the government sanctioning open and wanton cruelty on the streets—sound familiar? When I got offered the chance to write about Kenji Mizoguchi’s folktale-inspired 1954 epic Sansho the Bailiff this past winter amid Operation Metro Surge and just weeks after the murders of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, I immediately felt the connection. It was deep in my bones. Continue reading
|Dan Howard| Since the end of World War II, hundreds of, if not over a thousand, films have been made about it, capturing varying themes from fighting on the front lines, infiltrating the Third Reich, the effect of the war on innocent bystanders, etc. Yet, the WWII films I find myself drawn to are… Continue reading
|Penny Folger| Family Plot, Alfred Hitchcock’s final feature film, turns 50 this year, and while often overlooked, it’s a delightful and, dare I say, light comedy? But how could the director so often associated with murder have made something… cute? (Fortunately… Continue reading
|Patrick Clifford| In the 1976 film Family Plot, the word plot refers to a piece of land where a family is seemingly buried. The family who owns the plot is the Shoebridge family. Both details say very little about the “storyline” definition of plot. But Family Plot is a film by Alfred Hitchcock… Continue reading
|John Costello| For all its intrigue, racketeering, grift, occasional death, and rubble, The Third Man (1949) maintains a persistent optimism. Zither music strings us through chase scenes across Vienna’s war-damaged landscapes and down shadowy passages. The movie’s action includes… Continue reading
|Ian Taylor| Two gentlemen are sitting in a railway carriage, traveling through London. As the train slows down at a station, the first man looks out the window and says, “Is this Wembley?” The second man, gauging, replies, “No, it’s Thursday.” The first man nods thoughtfully and says… Continue reading
|Wil McMillen| Sometimes you see a thing, and then you can’t unsee it. I’m sorry for what I’m about to do, but I’m about to ruin the ending of North by Northwest for you. I blame my wife for this. Proceed with caution if you don’t want to know how the magic works. When we were dating… Continue reading
|Ryan Sanderson| Rorschach-like light patterns on large screens. Bodies gyrating rhythmically. Some dancers truly really feel the rhythm. Others just pump their fists and play along. I’m not great at reading crowds, but the ratio of pretenders to true believers doesn’t seem great… Continue reading
|Tim Schwagel| When I eagerly popped in my copy of Collateral to prepare for this article, I had a lot of potential topics rattling around in my head. I could ramble for days about the magic of films that take place over one night, the overt themes of not letting perfection get in the… Continue reading
|Dan McCabe| I first saw Collateral when it came out in theaters during late summer of 2004. A friend and I saw it on a whim after an evening round of golf. On the way to the multiplex, we passed a car driving at night with its lights off. The sun had set not long ago, so it’s quite possible the… Continue reading
|Dan McCabe| When I was a college student, I worked at the front desk of my dorm. The shelf beneath the window stored a few hundred VHS tapes, which residents could rent by dropping off their university ID card. One rather uneventful night, I browsed… Continue reading
|Natalie Marlin| Hamlet is no more a play about a prince seeking revenge than it is about any of its other threads—nationalistic aristocratic decay, melancholic humors, loss inciting psychiatric madness. Patsies cast off to certain death, mere pawns in power plays. Blood begetting more blood, until it is entirely… Continue reading
|Jay Ditzer| Will Graham: I thought you might be curious to see if you’re smarter than the person I’m looking for. Dr. Hannibal Lecktor: Then by implication, you think you’re smarter than me since you caught me. Will Graham: I know that I’m not smarter than you. Dr. Hannibal… Continue reading
|Jackson Stern| “You owe me awe,” says the fictional serial killer at the darkened core of Manhunter. Lucky for him, the moviegoing public not only met his demand but put it on a pedestal. In the four decades since the film’s release, Michael Mann’s third theatrical feature has become the… Continue reading
|Courtney Kowalke| If I were a character in Rear Window (1954), I would be the woman who lives above Lars and Anna Thorwald with her husband and their dog. I have thought about this a lot—Rear Window is one of my all-time favorite movies. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched… Continue reading
|Andrew Neill| Let’s start with a trigger warning for the film Rear Window: the dog dies. The sensitivity around this subject is prevalent, powerful, and worthy of respect. There’s a whole site where a community of people compile trigger warnings for sensitive content in media… Continue reading
|Sophie Durbin| “Frank unfolds his wallet to place the letter inside. A tattered paste-up collage is there, too. He opens it. There’s a white house from a magazine. A cut-out Cadillac is glued in front. Bits and pieces of trees are drawn in with green Pentel. A small baby from a Gerber food ad… Continue reading
|Clare Brownlee| Hitchcock is considered one of the enduring masters of the horror genre, and his 1960 film Psycho is no exception to that renowned filmography. It not only started a new kind of horror movie entirely, but maintains a legacy as one of the greatest in the genre. I’m not… Continue reading
|Jay Ditzer| The reputation of the animated cult classic Heavy Metal rests on promises it largely can’t keep. Sure, it’s full of sex, drugs, and rock ’n roll, at least superficially. What it actually delivers is something more revealing. The film is deeply of its era, which is both a strength and a weakness. Continue reading
|J.R. Jones| Opened in 1880, about 12 miles north of San Francisco, Folsom State Prison occupies the former site of a mining camp along the American River. The original prison buildings and walls were constructed with hand-cut granite from the surrounding hills, which gives… Continue reading
|Wil McMillen| Everyone is scared. Everyone is broke. Unemployment is skyrocketing. There’s a madman in the White House who is threatening to blow up anyone who looks at him wrong. It’s 1983, and I’m eight years old. Nostalgia for the 1980s is amusing to me. The 80s, at least the early 80s… Continue reading
|Reid Lemker| Sometimes, it’s a miracle that films get made, and RKO’s 1949 film, The Big Steal, is one of those miracles. Directed by Don Siegel and starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and William Bendix, The Big Steal was originally conceived as a vehicle for RKO star George Raft, but… Continue reading
|Andrew Neill| The lights are out except for the TV. Outside of its pulsing glow, the bedroom is painted with deep blue shadows, which extend through the window, out onto the snowy front yard, across the icy street, a few blocks of civilization, and then miles and miles… Continue reading
|MH Rowe| A lot of art seems gruesome and tasteless when you’re twelve or thirteen years old. It repels and attracts you for exactly that reason. Later, when you’ve reached maturity or thereabouts and are better equipped with the faculty of judgement, you may have a… Continue reading
|MH Rowe| The most interesting films tend to be those that go all the way into a gnarly little dreamworld. Not that the dreamworld of American Gigolo seems gnarly at first. The story begins by reveling in the easy brilliance of California sunshine. There’s no glare. No one sweats. A breeze… Continue reading
|Penny Folger| Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo, starts out with all the luster and flash of the 1980s though it was actually shot in 1979. Yet, stylistically, it preternaturally defines the decade that was to come. “It’s almost setting the… Continue reading
|Ed Dykhuizen| Communism does not create a great environment for filmmaking. Communist governments tend to try to control everything, especially how people think. All art becomes state propaganda limited to a handful of party-friendly messages and forms. You have to… Continue reading
|Matthew Tchepikova-Treon| A young Richard Pryor sits inside a dark, nondescript bar. “California is a weird state,” he says, “because they have laws for pedestrians—you know like, you cross the street—they have laws for pedestrians, but they don’t have laws for people… Continue reading
|Sophie Durbin| would strongly recommend that everyone who’s anyone attend Berlin & the Trylon Present: A Celebration of Giorgio Moroder on Thursday, February 5. While our beloved Trylon Cinema does well at staying/excelling in its lane, the occasional creative foray into other local… Continue reading
|Lars Johnson| In the early 1980s, an idealistic Japanese animator entered into an agreement with a magazine to create a manga on the condition that it would not be turned into a feature film. The series immediately took off and became popular. The publisher, presumably caught… Continue reading
|Noah Frazier| Bugs are gross. They look scary. They’ve got creepy legs and weird pincer mouths. A lot of them have an alarming amount of eyes. They bite, they sting. Sometimes they…let me double check my notes here…drink! your! blood! Like it’s a tasty treat to them!… Continue reading
|Courtney Kowalke| On October 21, 2025, around 1:00 pm, YourClassical MPR played Ottorino Respighi’s “Fountains of Rome.” I know because I was listening to the station in my car. As I drove through Uptown, I listened to Lynne Warfel wax poetic about the piece. She pointed out that the… Continue reading
|Devin Warner| I am so happy that this movie is being shown. While waiting in line to buy a ticket for the first 80’s Action Extravaganza at the Trylon, John wandered the line and asked everyone for movies they would like to see. My response was Shakedown, a buddy cop action… Continue reading
|Patrick Clifford| I recently bought a meatloaf and mashed potato sandwich from a gas station. I was on a road trip of sorts and had stopped out of need. For gas, a bathroom, and something to eat. The meatloaf and mashed potato sandwich was suffering under a heat lamp… Continue reading
|Chelli Riddough| When my ex-boyfriend Chris and I were splitting up, we had a breakup photo shoot. Our friend Zoey came over and took a series of photographs of us in the living room: hugging, holding the cat, sitting side by side. At the time, my close friends… Continue reading
|Ed Dykhuizen| Throughout the twentieth century, few documentaries managed to be both truthful and entertaining. Some were dry and deadly serious explications of important societal issues that, while enriching in the end, could feel a bit like homework. Others that provided thrills… Continue reading
|Dan McCabe| Note: This article contains spoilers for Federico Fellini’s 8 ½. If you want to see the movie without knowing anything about it, stop now. Guido (Marcello Mastroianni) hates the science fiction movie he’s making. He thinks such b-movie genre fare is cheesy and… Continue reading
