Eric Kohn's Substack

Years before Tony Kushner became a favorite collaborator of the world’s most revered blockbuster director, the playwright nailed the filmmaker’s appeal. The first half of Kushner’s 1988 show Angeles in America ends with the AIDS-stricken Prior Walter encounters a dazzling angelic being who sets up the cosmic metaphors to come. “God almighty,” Prior exclaims.

In his essay “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” French film critic André Bazin argued that the “objective nature of photography confers on it a quality of credibility absent from all over picture-making.” That was 1945.

This article originally appeared in The Playhouse Post. Subscribe by signing up for a free loyalty account here. At the dawn of the new millennium, horror movies were having a moment at the box office, in large part thanks to the popularity of the Scream franchise. The Wayan brothers saw a different kind of opportunity.

This article originally appeared in The Playhouse Post. Subscribe by signing up for a free loyalty account here. Last week, I reported on some highlights from the Cannes Film Festival, a few days before the awards ceremony took place. On Saturday, the jury awarded the Palme d’Or to Fjord, a Romanian drama from the celebrated director Cristian Mungiu, marking the second time he’s won the coveted festival prize. This time, however, the Palme d’Or has additional powers.

This article originally appeared in our weekly newsletter. Subscribe by signing up for a free loyalty account here. Every year, the Cannes Film Festival expands the conversation on world cinema. Last year’s edition elevated movies from Iran (Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident), Brazil (The Secret Agent), and Norway (Sentimental Value, which went on to win the Oscar for Best International Feature Film).

There were few pleasures in 2024 greater than the movies. In years past, I have rounded up the best of the year with a cutoff matching the number of the year in question; this time, however, I decided to add an extra digit as a gesture of hope for the year ahead — because lord knows we all need it. (I am omitting the films I helped get made this year, at least in a direct fashion, though naturally I recommend them, too.) Cinema is alive and more varied than ever.