Mr. Naves is an artist, teacher, and critic based in New York City. His writing has appeared in City Arts, the New Criterion,the New York Observer, Slate, the Spectator World, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications.
Although the picture has been acknowledged by any number of critics as well as the Library of Congress, ‘Nothing But a Man’ isn’t necessarily a title that rolls off the tongue when discussing cinematic highlights of the 1960s — yet.
By MARIO NAVES
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An appreciation for material sensuality filters through Harvey’s pictures. Textures are finely wrought; romantic portent is inescapable; and color ‘is a perception in the brain’ that she brings to almost otherworldly saturation.
By MARIO NAVES
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Director Mike Vesely’s comments about his new film prompt a request that ‘creatives’ drop the litany of social justice platitudes that presumably gloss the subject at hand with an impenetrable sheen of righteousness.
By MARIO NAVES
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The 12 movies in the series mounted by the Metrograph shuck the niceties of plot, character, and dialogue in favor of long takes, stolid rhythms, and occluded symbolism.
By MARIO NAVES
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Brooks is forever fresh, startling in her contemporaneity — she still shocks. The actor can be seen in a 4K restoration of the 1929 movie, which survives as a remarkable achievement, at Film Forum.
By MARIO NAVES
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The Paleolithic age is wonderous under the lens of director of photography Ben Fordesman, who transforms the Scottish Highlands into a Stone Age dreamscape with a suppleness worthy of Caravaggio.
By MARIO NAVES
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The director is not as arch as Wes Anderson, nor is he as mannered as Apichatpong Weerasethakul, but he shares with them a notion of filmmaking that underscores contrivance at the diminition of narrative.
By MARIO NAVES
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The screenwriters overplay the main character’s anomie to a point where the audience, though keyed into the circumstances behind her erratic and sometimes self-defeating behavior, becomes exasperated.
By MARIO NAVES
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Like Impressionism, Cubism, and, to a certain extent, jazz, Blaxploitation was a calumny that its practitioners took on as a badge of honor. Who doesn’t enjoy thumbing one’s nose at presumed arbiters of moral virtue?
By MARIO NAVES
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The 19 films being showcased have, for the most part, been overshadowed by Buñuel’s early Surrealist ventures and the late works made in Europe. The latter are commonly considered his finest films, but are they really?
By MARIO NAVES
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Given some of the artistic and commercial travails Argento has experienced in his 60-some-odd-year career, the description of him is apt — with the possible exception of the outsized level of fame typical of rock stars.
By MARIO NAVES
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At the time of its release, though, ‘Scarlet Street’ was banned in some parts for fear that ‘it would tend to corrupt morals or incite to crime.’ You know who else didn’t like the movie? Its star: Edward G. Robinson.
By MARIO NAVES
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