Noy Thrupkaew

A house, posed and white in the sun. A car whispers past. The front door of the house opens, a man emerges, crosses the street and walks directly into the frame — so begins Michael Haneke’s Caché (Hidden), the opening shot held a bit too long, tingeing the mundane with menace. Soon the image begins […]

What is funny — and why? A fat man and a thin one trying to move a piano? A bug-eyed freak and his teddy bear? Pratfalls, poop jokes, practical jokes, spun-out stories of laughed-through pain, drag-queen song and dance? What does what we find amusing say about who we are — as individuals, societies, and […]

The “gay cowboy movie” has compelled such unanimity of opinion–glowing kudos for its acting performances, its visual sensibility, its sensitivity–that the uniformity of questions about its identity is scarcely surprising. Brokeback Mountain is a clear work in many ways–it sketches out elegant conflicts and storylines with a skill that is as poetic as it is […]

Lumpy and bearish, his clean lines hidden under a jowly beard and 40 pounds of thick middle he put on for the role, George Clooney is an apt visual symbol for his latest film, Syriana, which is a compelling drama partially obscured by excess. Written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, who also penned the script […]

The corner in an empty room, the eerie space behind a computer monitor or TV — these are birthplaces of the weird, the terrifying, and the inexplicable. Over the past few years, Japanese horror films like Ringu, Ju-On, and Kairo have made much of these odd spaces, frightening hyperventilating masses in Japan and making Hollywood […]

Nothing is sacred for comedian Sarah Silverman, especially not herself. In her performances, her persona is a big, dirty joke, defilement made manifest — she’s a squeaky-clean girl who says the vilest things. Her first feature, Jesus Is Magic, pads out footage of her one-woman concert with skits of the most sordid imaginings: Sarah as […]

Master of the cocked eyebrow and the irony-spiked pen, Jane Austen doesn’t seem the sort to have suffered fools silently. What would she think, then, of the creators of Bridget Jones, Bride and Prejudice, and now the most recent Pride and Prejudice? How would she react upon seeing her keen takes on class and gender […]

After Innocence begins with a shout-out to God. “Hallelujah!” crows one man, arms upraised. “Praise God!” The man has literally been saved, after all, though by DNA and not strictly the divine, one of the growing number of men exonerated by genetic evidence. Jessica Sanders’ deliberately paced and often disturbing documentary doesn’t dwell long on […]

Everything is broken in Paradise Now — the crumbling buildings, the battered cars. Hany Abu-Assad’s darkly compelling feature is set in the West Bank town of Nablus, and the city’s decay fills every corner of the frame, every aspect of the lives of two would-be suicide bombers, Khaled (Ali Suliman) and Said (Kais Nashef). Paradise […]