Toshiro Mifune – Intense acting and inventive spirit
When I began working on Akira Kurosawa, the pivotal role for his cinema of Toshiro Mifune (b. 1 April 1920…
Recent Posts
The taste of humanity: Tampopo
At the core of Juzo Itami’s Tampopo (1985) is the ambition of the central character, Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto), to produce…
New Releases: Crazy Rich Asians
I recently saw Crazy Rich Asians, and afterwards joked that it’s one of the most interesting of the Disney cartoon-princess…
Seeing race through a new lens: how a 22-year old filmmaker is challenging identity in America
While countless college freshman spent their days deciding which clubs and societies to join and whether they should major in…
Gloria Grahame’s best film noir performances: Part II
Human Desire (1954), directed by Fritz Lang “It seems that Jean Renoir and Fritz Lang had in common a taste…
How Andrzej Wajda used cinema to reveal hidden truths about his nation
Andrzej Wajda started his career as a filmmaker in post-war Poland. His early films – A Generation, Kanal, Ashes and Diamonds, Lotna and…
Gloria Grahame’s best film noir performances: Part I
One of film noir’s defining actors, Gloria Grahame gave her femme fatale characters a raw, vulnerable sensuality. She was not…
The she-panther and the yakuza in Drunken Angel
Drunken Angel (Yoidore tenshi, 1948) is Akira Kurosawa’s first film in which music, used at both a diegetic and non-diegetic…
Natasha Richardson in The Comfort of Strangers: A journey into the Armani style of the 1990s
In 1980, Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo launched Giorgio Armani’s career. The designer went on to revolutionize fashion, and menswear and…
