By Vadim Rizov [ Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2009 begins today. Screenings are held at both The Film Society of Lincoln Center and IFC Center. Click venue names for more information.] If you need to be told that Claire Denis' latest, 35 Shots Of Rum is essential viewing, you might want to skip it...

By Vadim Rizov [ Dillinger is Dead opens today for a one-week run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). Click here for screening information.] Dillinger is Dead opens with worker Glauco (Michel Piccoli) at the gas-mask factory. As someone stands in a poisonous gas chamber testing out his latest pr...

By John Lichman, Matt Prigge, and Vadim Rizov [ Editor's Note: The views expressed in this podcast are those of the commenters, and do not necessarily reflect the official policies, positions, or opinions of The House Next Door.] INTRODUCTION Hello Philadelphia! This was the last podcast we did befo...

By John Lichman, Ray Privett, Vadim Rizov, Jay Stern, Keith Uhlich, and Victor Varnado [ Editor's Note: The views expressed in this podcast are those of the commenters, and do not necessarily reflect the official policies, positions, or opinions of The House Next Door.] INTRODUCTION Hello Greenpoint...

By Vadim Rizov Film Forum's double-feature of Man's Castle and American Madness (playing February 7th, 8th, and 9th) offers an easy, quick way to watch two rarely-screened, hard-to-find 30s films in one sitting. It's also a chance to contemplate two different kinds of emotional intensity from two ve...

By Vadim Rizov [ Coraline is now playing in wide release.] How awesome is Coraline? So awesome. That's the Twitter review, and that's really all that needs to be said up front. Coraline is that rarest of creatures, the PG-rated kids' movie with no big scares (there's one "boo" moment, but it's prett...

By Vadim Rizov According to a quick check, this column has now been up 22 times since October 2007, which indicates that the month-long gaps between installments are no longer the anomalies I was hoping they would turn out to be and pretty much have become the norm. This means we're into February an...

By Vadim Rizov [ Author's Note: Almost a meaningless exercise: the more time I'm lucky enough to spend at film festivals, the further apart the divergence between festival release dates and actual theatrical engagements (no matter how token) and the even longer wait for DVD renders pretty much any k...

By Vadim Rizov [ Warning: In the end-of-year rush to hear everything, make a mix and generally be done with this damn year, this column is especially long, bloated, and prone to skipping back and forth between strangely long and kind of short and ludicrously inadequate capsules.] *** Neon Neon's cur...

By Peter Debruge, John Lichman, Vadim Rizov, Michael Joshua Rowin, Andrew Schenker, Keith Uhlich, S.T. VanAirsdale, and Lauren Wissot [ Editor's Note: The views expressed in this podcast are those of the commenters, and do not necessarily reflect the official policies, positions, or opinions of The ...