Jonathan Rosenbaum's Blog: jonathanrosenbaum.com, page 28

The School of Rock

From the Chicago Reader (October 3, 2003). — J.R.

Broadly speaking, this is Richard Linklater’s French Cancan – that is to say, a humanist’s joyful exploration of the musical in which the actors’ personalities resonate as much as the characters they play. Or maybe it’s what Jean Renoir might have come up with if he’d remade [...]

THE WHITE BUFFALO (1978 review)

From Monthly Film Bulletin, February 1978 (Vol. 45, No. 529). If memory serves, this was the last review I ever wrote for MFB, done on a trip back to London after I had moved to San Diego, although I believe I may have written a few features for the magazine after this, following its change [...]

A Bankable Feast [BABETTE’S FEAST]

From the May 20, 1988 Chicago Reader. I’ve recently learned that an edition of this film is in the works from Criterion, and Michael Almereyda will be writing about it. — J.R.


BABETTE’S FEAST
** (Worth seeing)
Directed and written by Gabriel Axel
With Stephane Audran, Jean-Philippe Lafont, Gudmar Wivesson, Jarl Kulle, Hanne Stensgard, Bodil Kjer, Vibeke [...]

Mamet & Hitchcock: The Men Who Knew Too Much

From Scenario, Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 1998. –- J.R.





“Hitchcock lives!” I was inspired to write at the head of my review of House of Games, David Mamet’s first feature, in 1987. Ten years later, Mamet’s fifth feature, The Spanish Prisoner, boasts plenty of Hitchcockian elements of its own. but this time I [...]

When Fable and Fact Interact [INDIA MATRI BHUMI]

From the Chicago Reader (August 31, 2007). — J.R.

INDIA MATRI BHUMI ****
DIRECTED BY ROBERTO ROSSELLINI
WRITTEN BY ROSSELLINI, SONALI SENROY DAS GUPTA, FEREYDOUN HOVEYDA, AND JEAN L’HOTE
WITH A NONPROFESSIONAL, UNCREDITED CAST
From the beginning film has owed part of its fascination to its ambiguous marriage of documentary and fiction. Just after the war Roberto Rossellini came to [...]

Ford Rambler: Review of Tag Gallagher’s JOHN FORD

From Sight and Sound (Spring 1987). –- J.R.







JOHN FORD: The Man and His Films

by Tag Gallagher

University of California Press/$35



‘I shall almost always be wrong, when I conceive of a man’s character as being all of one piece.’ Appearing at the outset of Tag Gallagher’s massive critical biography of Ford, this quotation from Stendhal serves both [...]

The World According to Harvey and Bob

From the Chicago Reader (June 16, 1995). — J.R.


The Glass Shield
Rating *** A must see
Directed and written by Charles Burnett
With Michael Boatman, Lori Petty, Ice Cube, Elliott Gould, Richard Anderson, Don Harvey, Michael Ironside, Michael Gregory, Bernie Casey, and M. Emmet Walsh.
Smoke
Rating * Has redeeming facet
Directed by Wayne Wang
Written by Paul Auster
With William Hurt, Harvey [...]

Brother Carl

From the Chicago Reader (November 1, 1992). — J.R.

Susan Sontag’s seldom-seen second feature — filmed in Sweden like her first (Duet for Cannibals) but in English and with a cast of Swedish and French actors — shows the influence of Bergman’s Persona, Dreyer’s Ordet, and Whale’s Frankenstein as it depicts two tortured relationships, a suicide, [...]

The Triumph of Publicity Over Public Discourse

My 30th “En Movimiento” column for Caiman Cuadernos de Cine, formerly known as the Spanish Cahiers du Cinema, written in late January, 2013. — J.R.



The debates about Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal’s Zero Dark Thirty in the United States have been substantial. Critical positions have ranged from Ignatiy Vishnevetsky’s measured defense at [...]

“Useful” Omissions: On LINCOLN and ARGO

Written for the February 2013 issue of Caiman Cuadernos de Cine, as one of my bimonthly columns for that magazine (”En movimiento”). It continues to amaze me how American movies who preach the inescapable inevitability of corruption in American life — Citizen Kane, The Godfather films, and now Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty — are [...]