Sight & Sound

Sanity is not enough: Jack Ryan versus the world’s hotheads

With John Kracinski now assuming the role in Amazon’s new streaming thriller series, Tom Clancy’s crisis-averting CIA analyst-spy has been passed through five different Hollywood leads since the end of the Cold War. In a world of rising temperatures and screen bombast, is he too rational for the job, asks Tim Hayes.

TV

Grace Elliott: a woman filming a woman interviewing a man

A mysterious female director created these short and surprising publicity segments in the early 1930s. What else could she have done on a larger canvas, asks Brad Stevens.

Bradlands

Film of the week: Columbus artfully balances a pair of opposites

Kogonada’s first narrative feature is as meticulously composed as you would expect, and a poignant tale of intergenerational conflict that recalls the work of Ozu, writes Ben Nicholson.

Reviews and recommendations

Skate and awake: how Skate Kitchen confronts skateboarding’s wall of machismo

Crystal Moselle’s fictionalised verité portrait of New York’s all-women Skate Kitchen collective remakes the language of skate cinema to show us a more open, emancipated and inspiring culture, says Sander Hölsgens.

Features

Film of the week: The Wife – Glenn Close glowers in the shadow of her prize lesser half

The Nobel coronation of Jonathan Pryce’s peacocking author finally capsizes his marriage’s balance of power in this prosaic but richly acted adaptation of Meg Wolitzer’s story of female disentitlement, writes Kate Stables.

Reviews and recommendations

Cosmic curiosities: umpteen highlights of Toronto’s 2018 Wavelengths showcase

TIFF’s experimental film and video programme was back on song this year with myriad experimental wonders from both masters and rising stars, writes Jordan Cronk.

Festivals

A radical vision in east London: collaborative filmmaking at the Four Corners workshop

An exhibition offers the chance to explore how in 1975 an empty shop in Bethnal Green became home to a pioneering set of independent filmmakers whose work boldly focused on under-represented communities, writes Anna Coatman.

Features

Film of the week: Faces Places pastes Agnès Varda’s playfulness over French landscapes

Teaming up with street artist JR, the legendary director goes in search of friends new and old in this intuitive caper, which veers between moments of collective joy and great personal poignancy, writes Sukhdev Sandhu.

Reviews and recommendations

Peace, love… and Estonian madness at the Hiroshima Animation Festival 2018

Asia’s premier animation showcase flies the flag for pacifist values – with a burgeoning note of inclusivity amongst the prize-winners. But there was a welcome shot of derangement to be found in this year’s retrospective of Estonia’s wild history of animated wonders, reports Alex Dudok de Wit.

Festivals

Burt Reynolds obituary: a blithe legend

As wry as he was virile, Burt Reynolds wore his stardom with a nonchalance, a fallibility and sense of camaraderie, that made it all the warmer while it lasted, writes Nick Pinkerton.

Obituaries

Lucky: days and years with Harry Dean Stanton, by his friend and PA Logan Sparks

Longtime PA and friend to the late Harry Dean Stanton, Logan Sparks also co-wrote and -produced the actor’s final role, as the lead in Lucky. He shares his memories, video clips and photos on the shoot and off it with Leigh Singer.

Features

Three Colours Silver: Europe 25 years after Kieslowski’s trilogy – a video essay

A quarter century on from Krzysztof Kieślowski’s post-Cold War arthouse landmark, how has time distilled the insights of Three Colours Blue, White and Red, asks Leigh Singer.

Video

Access: Sheffield Doc/Fest

How to be a documentary filmmaker in the UK? It’s all about what hotel bar you know, video-essays Charlie Lyne.

Video

In her eyes: notes on Gloria Grahame (a video essay)

With a curl of her lip and an arch of her eyebrow, Gloria Grahame was the actress who stood up to both Humphrey Bogart and Lee Marvin in their most violent roles. In this video essay, Serena Bramble explores the burn mark Grahame left on the silver screen.

Video

Video essay: What is neorealism?

kogonada pits the director of The Bicycle Thieves against the producer of Gone with the Wind on the same movie material.

Video