Pickup on South Street, Sam Fuller’s brutal yet sensual masterpiece, begins on a speeding subway train, full of colliding bodies stuffed inside like canned sardines. No one speaks, but everyone glances; some at the floor or out the window, others at unsuspecting passengers, yet all attempting in one way or another to not betray what’s truly on their mind. Every initial glance is revealed to be misdirected until our anti-hero, Skip McCoy, bursts onto the scene to meet the sultry…

The post-war hangover to follow Donen/Kelly's night out On the Town. Where their earlier collaboration was on the cusp of the 50s, and thus still mired in the earlier decade's lingering celebration of soldiers and the WWII victory, It's Always Fair Weather is firmly entrenched in the 50s expansion of consumerism and soul-sucking "suit" jobs designed to move every man, woman and child toward the elusive pursuit of the virtually unattainable American Dream. Whether through the brilliant passage-of-time montage that…

"Jane Schoenbrun’s first two features, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and I Saw the TV Glow, explored the inextricable entanglements between our physical world and, respectively, digital and televisual spaces. How these sometimes ominous, sometimes bewitching spaces can serve as sanctuaries for the vulnerable is also a key theme of Schoenbrun’s third feature, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, which further probes and blurs the lines between individual lived experience and the media we consume.

The film’s…

"In the opening image of Damiano Damiani’s thriller Confessions of a Police Captain, a pair of hands cling to the wall of a mental institution. Across the film, however, it becomes clear that madness isn’t confined within the walls of that hospital. In 1971, it’s early in Italy’s Years of Lead, but crime is already widespread and corruption has seeped throughout seemingly every major institution, leading to a brewing feud between Franco Nero’s tightly wound Deputy District Attorney Traini and…

"The other day I had a dream that capitalists created terrorism in order to force the state to better protect the business community. Funny, isn't it?"

"Germany for the Germans. Everyone else will be sent home."

It's impossible not to relate Fassbinder's dense and challenging portrait of capital and leftist activists to today's political climate. The Third Generation, virtually unavailable for over 25 years, presents a confounding, chaotic world view where capitalism, anarchy and terrorism constantly overlap and the political…