John Oursler

‘Love Streams’ Is a Masterful Swan Song From One of America’s Great Artists

‘Love Streams’ Is a Masterful Swan Song From One of America’s Great Artists

The once widely unavailable Love Streams gets a thorough Criterion reissue, a well-deserved feat for John Cassavetes' final masterpiece.
‘The Essential Jacques Demy’ Captures the Director’s Breezy, Bluesy World

‘The Essential Jacques Demy’ Captures the Director’s Breezy, Bluesy World

The Essential Jacques Demy provides an insightful look inside an auteur who may finally be getting the recognition he deserves.
Unnerving ‘Insomnia’ Gets Under Your Skin

Unnerving ‘Insomnia’ Gets Under Your Skin

Most people know Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia; few people, regrettably, know the superior work from which it is adapted.
Kiarostami’s ‘Like Somone in Love’ Is Like Something Beautiful

Kiarostami’s ‘Like Somone in Love’ Is Like Something Beautiful

Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami doubles-down on familiar themes in this film, with varying results.

Meryl Streep’s Incomparable Performance in ‘Sophie’s Choice’

Meryl Streep’s Incomparable Performance in ‘Sophie’s Choice’

No matter how you may feel about the story, Sophie's Choice is worth watching simply for the pleasure of watching Meryl Streep act.
Jan Svankmajer’s ‘Alice’ Is the Perfect Marriage of Content and Style

Jan Svankmajer’s ‘Alice’ Is the Perfect Marriage of Content and Style

Even when darker in subject matter, Jan Svankmajer's films all retain an element of joyousness and childlike wonder.
The Strangely Ineffable Power of ‘Nostalghia’

The Strangely Ineffable Power of ‘Nostalghia’

Russian transcendental filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky’s expansive tapestries define meditativeness.
A Queer Reading of François Truffaut’s Masterpiece, ‘Jules and Jim’

A Queer Reading of François Truffaut’s Masterpiece, ‘Jules and Jim’

By sharing Catherine between them, she becomes the tool through which Jules and Jim can realize their most perfect union with one another.

The Strange ‘Post Tenebras Lux’ Will Get Under Your Skin

The Strange ‘Post Tenebras Lux’ Will Get Under Your Skin

Rare is the film that strives for rhapsodic innovation and achieves it without fail, but Mexican auteur Reygadas strives for such distinction, and mostly achieves it.
The Line Between Past and Present Is Forever Blurred in ‘Grey Gardens’

The Line Between Past and Present Is Forever Blurred in ‘Grey Gardens’

Withdrawn from a world that has changed around them so steadfastly that coping would be an embarrassment too ghastly to imagine, the Beales stay put in Grey Gardens.

Altman’s ‘Nashville’ Is a Microcosm of America Set in One of Its Very Specific Milieus

‘Mary Poppins’ Is Practically Perfect, but Not Quite