The Film Stage

First Trailer for Alex Ross Perry’s Videoheaven Captures the Rise and Fall of the Video Store
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A late but exciting addition to the July movie calendar is Alex Ross Perry’s second release of the year. The three-hour essay film/documentary Videoheaven takes a comprehensive, staggering look at the history and near-demise of the video store solely through...
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Watch: Wes Anderson Directs Himself in New Montblanc Short Film, Shot by Darius Khondji
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With Wes Anderson’s newest film The Phoenician Scheme now in theaters, he’s now reteamed with Montblanc for a new short film following last year’s collaboration, which was shot by Linus Sandgren. This time shot by Darius Khondji, who worked with...
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The B-Side Ep. 164 – Mike Leigh (with Alex Heeney)
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Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie directors! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.  Today we discuss Mike Leigh, one of our greatest living filmmakers....
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J. Hoberman on 1960s New York, Protests, Alternative Press, and Sinners
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To paraphrase Margaret O’Brien in Meet Me in St. Louis: Wasn’t I lucky to come of age in my favorite city? For one thing, my impressionable undergraduate years fell during J. Hoberman’s tenure as lead film critic of the Village...
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New to Streaming: Friendship, Final Destination Bloodlines, An Unfinished Film, and More
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Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here. The Annihilation of Fish (Charles Burnett) Essentially a lost film, legendary director Charles Burnett’s...
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Emulsion Episode Eight: The Jag and Familiar Touch
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I’ve spent my offline hours producing The Jag, a new play that runs from June 21 to July 6 at the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research. Even without some of my fingerprints, this makes a curiously cinema-centered creative team: directed...
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“The Phones Became Weapons”: Anthony Dod Mantle on Animating 28 Years Later with Danny Boyle
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Anthony Dod Mantle has done more to advance digital photography than nearly any artist in any medium, a fact his humility rendered somewhat subtle during a career-spanning conversation I had the fortune of conducting in 2023. He could, nevertheless, casually...
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Exclusive Trailer for Ramon Zürcher’s The Sparrow in the Chimney, Arriving This August
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Since its premiere at last year’s Locarno Film Festival, we’ve long-awaited the U.S. release of Ramon Zürcher’s The Sparrow in the Chimney, the trilogy-capper following the formally thrilling The Strange Little Cat and The Girl and the Spider. Starring Maren Eggert, Britta Hammelstein,...
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28 Years Later Review: A Legacy Sequel Frenetic in Energy and Ideas
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You can say that Danny Boyle was once the filmmaking avatar of Cool Britannia: a director who, at age 40, still managed to perfectly capture the zeitgeist of 20-year-olds, as seen in Trainspotting. In the span of time between then...
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Familiar Touch Review: Sarah Friedland’s Wonderfully Gentle Debut Heralds a New Voice
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Note: This review was originally published as part of our Venice 2024 coverage. Familiar Touch opens in theaters on June 20. In a sunny kitchen in California, Ruth prepares a sandwich with the muscle memory that only a lifetime allows....
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