The First Slam Dunk Review: Japan’s Megahit Breaks New Ground for the Sports Movie
One of the most popular manga series of all time––one which ran in the same pages as Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure––has never ac...
Eli Friedberg
Cormac McCarthy on Screen: Revisiting the Film Adaptations of the Great American Novelist
It has been two weeks since the passing of Cormac McCarthy, the taciturn Southern gentleman widely regarded as one of the great American novelists of the last ...
Shin Kamen Rider Review: Bedazzled by Bugmen, Japan’s Great Pop Auteur Burrows Deeper into Fandom Pastiche
Fatally, perhaps, I went into Shin Kamen Rider as a Hideaki Anno fan first and a Kamen Rider fan… not so much. I knew about it, of course: the iconography of t...
Suzume Review: Makoto Shinkai’s Anime Fantasy is Bright, Noisy, and Shapeless
About a third of the way through pop-sensation anime auteur Makoto Shinkai’s Suzume (a third, at least, by my rough estimation––time is a flat circle in this s...
The Super Mario Bros. Movie Review: For Better or Worse, a Faithful Video Game Movie
On the eve of its 30th birthday, Super Mario Bros.––the 1993 film, not the groundbreaking video game––might be due for critical reappraisal. Dubbed “a complete...
Shin Ultraman Review: A Propulsive, Philosophical Superhero Extravaganza
Four decades ago—before he worked with Hayao Miyazaki, before the young artists’ collective he co-founded changed their name from “Daicon Films” to “Studio Gai...
Skinamarink Review: Impressionistic Indie Spooker Seeks Nostalgia, Finds Monotony
“1995” declares a 1970s-style title card in the opening minutes of Kyle Edward Ball’s Skinamarink, a film presented in fake grain filters meant to suggest the ...
Justin Kurzel on Nitram, Gun Culture, Creative Partnerships, and Step Brothers
Controversy is no stranger to Justin Kurzel. His 2011 debut Snowtown, an impressionist true-crime drama of harrowing power, dramatized Australia’s most notorio...
The Matrix Resurrections Writer Aleksandar Hemon on Mythologies, Meta-Narratives, Tolstoy, and TV
The Matrix Resurrections was one of our favorite films of 2021, an auteur franchise film thoroughly unafraid to plunge down the rabbit hole of Lana Wachowski’s...
Mamoru Hosoda on Creating an Idealized Digital World in Belle
When we last spoke with anime auteur Mamoru Hosoda in 2018, we discussed his cinematic inspirations, interest in women and children as protagonists, and approa...
