Jonathan Rosenbaum's Blog: jonathanrosenbaum.com, page 25

MOVING PLACES: A LIFE AT THE MOVIES Acknowledgements & Looking Back at MOVING PLACES & Dedication

I will be reprinting the entirety of my first and most ambitious book (Moving Places: A Life at the Movies, New York: Harper & Row, 1980) in its second edition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) on this site in eleven installments. This is the first.
Note: The book can be purchased [...]

London and New York Journal

From Film Comment (July-August 1976). In some respects, I think this may be the best of all my many Journals for Film Comment, but for my readers who feel that my work is sometimes (or often) marred or even ruined by my strident tone, it may also be legitimately regarded as my worst. Among [...]

These Are The Damned

From the Chicago Reader (October 1, 1989). — J.R.

Joseph Losey’s black-and-white SF thriller, made in 1962 during his pre-Pinter British period, begins as a sort of love story — MacDonald Carey is an American businessman who shows interest in Shirley Anne Field and as a consequence gets beaten up by teddy boys led by Oliver [...]

Old Wave Saved from Drowning (with Sandy Flitterman)

From American Film (November 1981). — J.R.
Old Wave Saved from Drowning

By Sandy Flitterman and Jonathan Rosenbaum



Think of French cinema, and the New Wave springs immediately to mind. This association is hardly accidental. History, it is often said, gets written by the victors. And the victories recounted in the standard film histories — whether they are [...]

The Gunfighter

From the Chicago Reader (June 30, 2006). — J.R.

This superb 1950 tragedy about a former gunfighter (Gregory Peck in a handlebar mustache) trying to shake off his violent past and its attendant celebrity doesn’t have the sort of reputation among auteurist critics that it deserves, largely because it was directed by the out-of-fashion Henry King. [...]

Notes on the March to Montgomery

To commemorate the 48th anniversary of the Montgomery March, here is my first-person reportage of the last laps of the original event, hurriedly written for the April 2, 1965 issue of the Bard Observer. I’ve only done a little bit of light editing on this text. — J.R.



Notes on the March to Montgomery

By Jonathan [...]

Extraordinary People [LITTLE MAN TATE]

From the Chicago Reader (October 25, 1991). — J.R.

LITTLE MAN TATE
*** (A must-see)
Directed by Jodie Foster
Written by Scott Frank
With Adam Hann-Byrd, Jodie Foster, Dianne Wiest, Harry Connick Jr., David Pierce, Debi Mazar, and P.J. Ochlan.

Part of what’s refreshing about Jodie Foster’s first feature as a director is its quirky style and vision; even the [...]

TONI (1974 review)

From Time Out (London), September 13-19, 1974. –- J.R.


For Godard, French neo-realism was born with Jacques Tati’s ‘Jour de Fete’ in 1947. An even likelier candidate might be Jean Renoir’s ‘Toni’ (Everyman to Saturday), shot in southern France in 1934 with a cast of unknowns, and dealing with a community of immigrants who work [...]

That’s Entertainment! III

From the Chicago Reader (April 1, 1994). — J.R.

This third compilation of clips from MGM musicals — introduced, like its predecessors, by many of the leading performers (June Allyson, Cyd Charisse, Lena Horne, Howard Keel, Gene Kelly, Ann Miller, Debbie Reynolds, Mickey Rooney, and Esther Williams) — has so much pleasure to offer that any [...]

War Of The Worlds

From the Chicago Reader (June 24, 2005). — J.R.

Steven Spielberg’s shamelessly hokey version of the 1898 H.G. Wells yarn about murderous invaders from outer space starts off as a nimble scare show like Jaws. The special effects are good, and Tom Cruise isn’t bad as an alienated father fleeing with his kids. But such virtues [...]