With so much to laugh—and cry—about in today’s topsy-turvy world, the challenge of directing a social comedy in 2022 is…
James Greenberg
James Greenberg was formerly editor in chief of the DGA Quarterly, the craft journal of the Directors Guild of America. He was film critic for Los Angeles magazine and has written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New Yorker and Entertainment Weekly. He started his career as a critic and reporter for Daily Variety. He is author of Roman Polanski: A Retrospective (Abrams), the only book of its kind that Polanski has ever participated in.
For whatever reason, 2022 has been the year of directors reflecting on how they got their start as filmmakers. Perhaps…
When Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” came out in 1985, the author said that the violence against women…
George Bernard Shaw said, “Life is not about finding yourself. It’s about creating yourself.” American Artists understand this perhaps better…
At a time of widespread gender confusion, there is no ambiguity about writer/director Jane Campion’s view of toxic masculinity. It…
Creating an emotionally compelling documentary from material with an already well-known ending depends on the skill and commitment of the…
One of the most revealing scenes in Todd Haynes’s imaginative and entertaining documentary, “The Velvet Underground,” about the quintessential New…
To prepare for seeing “The Many Saints of Newark,” I went back to look at a few episodes of “The…
Taking to the open road—and all that implies—is an idea deeply rooted in the American psyche. The beckoning freedom of…
Film critics are by-in-large naysayers. Glass half-full kind of people. There is always something lacking in this year’s films. I…
By my count, there have been at least a dozen film and television productions of “Little Women,” including two silent…
Amidst the prosperity of post-war America, two of the institutions that reaped great rewards were labor unions and organized crime….
Bob Dylan could be a character in a Martin Scorsese movie. A prickly, emotionally complex, slightly shady artist who might…
I enjoy popcorn movies as much as the next person. They’re like a sugar high. But they also tend to…