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May-June 2019

Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir, Olivier Assayas’s Non-Fiction, Mindy Kaling’s Late Night and diversity, the lost language of lenses, Pedro Almodóvar on Pain and Glory, reconsidering Mexican auteur Roberto Gavaldón, Jordan Peele’s Us and assimilation, a special section on 50 years of Film at Lincoln Center, and much more

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Featured Articles

Issue Details

FEATURES

The Souvenir
By Sheila O’Malley
In Joanna Hogg’s exquisite breakout, a film student’s unsentimental education in 1980s England becomes a rigorous work of elusive psychological portraiture. Plus: an interview with Hogg by Nicolas Rapold

Late Night
By Devika Girish
The workplace comedy brings Mindy Kaling’s disarming, observant eye to the story of a homogenous talk show and its unexpected new hire

50 Years of Film at Lincoln Center
The world-famous film organization—and longtime publisher of this magazine—celebrates its golden anniversary and brand-new moniker this year. We reminisce with the words of subversive pioneer Amos Vogel and selections from series past by a handful of Film Comment contributors

Becoming Us: The Violence of Assimilation
By Soraya Nadia McDonald
Jordan Peele’s latest cultural touchstone, Us, plumbs the depths of the fractured American experience, but is there hope within its horrors?

Asako I & II
By Andrew Chan
Japan’s most excitingly unpredictable filmmaker, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, takes a left turn into pop melodrama with his shimmering tale of doubled love and folly

Non-Fiction
By Aliza Ma
Olivier Assayas never stops thinking about how tomorrow affects today, proving it again with a deceptively light, idea-packed sexual roundelay set in the publishing world

Cinema Optics
By Nick Pinkerton
Everything you see in a movie goes through and is transformed by the properties of the lens—that enduring analog hero of filmmaking, and perhaps its most woefully misunderstood component

Roberto Gavaldón
By Imogen Sara Smith
The sumptuously moody melodramas of the Mexican auteur are back in full luster for new generations to rediscover—and rank alongside Hollywood’s best

DEPARTMENTS & COLUMNS

THE PRE-SHOW | News, views, conversations, and other things to get worked up about
News, Inspired: Pedro Almodóvar on Pain and Glory, Release Me: Lucio Castro’s End of the Century by Jordan Cronk, Directions: Tsai Ming-liang by Jonathan Romney, Restoration Row: Márta Mészáros’s Adoption and The Two of Them by Max Nelson

CRITICS’ CHOICE
Critics rate and comment on new releases

MAKE IT REAL | The wide, wide world of cinematic nonfiction
Three portraits of women by Eric Hynes

ART AND CRAFT | Filmmaking according to the makers
Editor Galut Alarcón on Raúl Ruiz’s The Wandering Soap Opera, as told to Manu Yáñez Murillo

FINEST HOUR | One actor, one performance
David Essex in That’ll Be the Day by Christina Newland

OFF THE PAGE | The art of getting from book to screen
Birdman and Raymond Carver by Nick Davis

PLAYING ALONG | Music and the movies
Michel Legrand and The Happy Ending by Michael Koresky

CURRENTS | New and important work plucked from festivals and elsewhere
Affonso Uchôa’s Seven Years in May by Abby Sun, Mark Jenkin’s Bait by Nicolas Rapold, Guillaume Brac’s Treasure Island by Jordan Cronk, Natalia Cabral & Oriol Estrada’s Miriam Lies by José Teodoro, Sofia Bohdanowicz & Deragh Campbell’s MS Slavic 7 by Devika Girish, Maíra Bühler’s Let It Burn by Nicolas Rapold

IN MEMORIAM | Remembering the cinéastes who have passed on
Agnès Varda by Kelley Conway & Carolee Schneemann by Melissa Ragona

THE BIG SCREEN | Reviews of notable new films opening in theaters (hopefully near you)
The Last Black Man in San Francisco by Stuart Klawans, Charlie Says by Madeline Whittle, Booksmart by Cassie da Costa, The Chambermaid by Lawrence Garciaand more

Short Takes: Pasolini by Manu Yáñez Murillo, Too Late to Die Young by José Teodoro, Aniara by Nicolas Rapold, Wild Rose by Steven Mears, The Raft by Naomi Keenan O’Shea

HOME MOVIES | Cinema spun, streamed, and beamed
Anthony Asquith x 2 by Gina Telaroli, OVID.tv Streaming Service by Jordan Cronk, The Burial of Kojo by Robert Joseph Schneider, Jacques Perconte: “Corps” & “Paysages” by Vincent Warne, The Landlord by Ina Diane Archer, Stan & Ollie by Steven Mears, Taking Tiger Mountain Revisited by Maitland McDonagh, The Wild Frontier by Madeleine Collier, Wish List: So’s Your Old Man by Laura Kern

READINGS | Books about all aspects of filmmaking and film culture
What Is Japanese Cinema?: A History by Inuhiko Yomota, reviewed by Kazu Watanabe; A Life in the Movies: Stories from 50 Years in Hollywood by Irwin Winkler, reviewed by Glenn Kenny; Picture by Lillian Ross, reviewed by Farran Smith Nehme

GRAPHIC DETAIL | The art of the movie poster
The poster art of Osvaldo Venturi by Adrian Curry