Eric Kohn

Defending 'Vertigo' From…Myself.

Eric Kohn — Wed, 02 May 2012 21:20:43 GMT

One of the joys of the new Criticwire blog is Matt Singer's weekly email to critics. In addition to asking us to name the best movie currently in theaters, Matt also includes a new hypothetical...

Brief Reaction to the Cannes 2012 Lineup: Start Salivating...

Eric Kohn — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:08:46 GMT

The more you attend Cannes, the more you know Cannes. Six years ago, when I first attended the festival, I knew nothing of Hong Sang-soo, whose "In Another Country" premieres in this...

Triumph of 'The Artist': Why the Independent Spirit Awards Need a Wake Up Call

Eric Kohn — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 18:55:19 GMT

With all these discussions of rules and stipulations, the award season can sound like a terribly cold, mechanical affair. Setting aside whether or not "The Artist" was qualified to win Best...

On the Importance of Brian Brooks, Eugene Hernandez and the Indiewire of the Future.

Eric Kohn — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 17:09:02 GMT

The first time I met Brian Brooks and Eugene Hernandez, then Indiewire's managing editor and editor-in-chief, was at a bagel shop in the East Village. They had no office. Or, rather, the absence...

Anatomy of a List: My Top 10's In 2 Places

Eric Kohn — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 22:49:07 GMT

Off the top off my head, I can think of two movies I neglected to put on my top 10 list for 2011, and they couldn't be more dissimilar. Federico Veiroj's paean to cinephilia, "A Useful...

Robert Koehler Defends "Margaret," Variety Exec Makes a Bad Joke.

Eric Kohn — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:07:34 GMT

The whole "Team Margaret" campaign took an odd turn recently when the esteemed film critic and sometime programmer Robert Koehler (known to many as "Bob") allegedly sent an email...

Steven Spielberg On "Russian Ark" And "Intimate Movies"

Eric Kohn — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:07:01 GMT

If the great French critic André Bazin lived long enough to see a few Steven Spielberg movies, he probably would have loved them. A pioneering theorist in the field of realism, Bazin wrote...

Parsing Tablet's Top 100 Jewish Movies.

Eric Kohn — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:09:42 GMT

Today, Tablet magazine published a list of the "100 Greatest Jewish Films," the kind of divisive round-up that will obviously invite scrutiny for its rankings and omissions. So the magazine...

Why Do Review Embargoes Exist?

Eric Kohn — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:07:33 GMT

Over the weekend, word got out that New Yorker film critic David Denby decided to break the embargo on David Fincher's "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," reviewing the movie in this...

What Does It Mean To Be A "Sundance Rock Star"?

Eric Kohn — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 01:35:38 GMT

That's the question I asked myself shortly after assembling the gallery of filmmakers featured in several recent Indiewire articles about the festival's upcoming lineup. The term sprang to...

"Beginners"? "Tree Of Life"? Nevermind. The Real Winner of the 2011 Gothams Was Patton Oswalt.

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:41:47 GMT

I had the privilege of serving on two nominating committees for the Gotham awards this year: Best Breakthrough Performance and Best Ensemble. That meant I played a role in narrowing the field down to...

In Praise Of Woody Allen: A Personal Ode.

Eric Kohn — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 23:21:02 GMT

Like many Americans reared on eighties pop culture, I first discovered the potential of cinema by way of Steven Spielberg. The escapism of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," derivative as it may...

A Socialist Nightmare: Revisiting "Martha Marcy May Marlene" By Way Of "The Crowd."

Eric Kohn — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:15:27 GMT

When I was an undergraduate at NYU, I attended a career lecture by Garrison Keillor in the journalism department, where the "Lake Wobegon" overseer made his ascent to "A...

How I Met My Doppelganger at "Twilight," And What He Taught Me.

Eric Kohn — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 23:45:59 GMT

Much as I enjoy reading about movies, tales from behind the scenes of film journalism usually put me to sleep. But an experience I had the other night was simply too odd not to share. So if...

Catching Up: Brief Thoughts on Soderbergh's "Contagion."

Eric Kohn — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:15:25 GMT

The end of the world is a fixation that has captured the imagination of countless filmmakers in several eras of the medium's history. Even Charlie Chaplin pondered the apocalypse in an unproduced...

Before You Say "Fuck 'Twilight,'" Wait. Seriously, "Breaking Dawn" Is Sort of Good.

Eric Kohn — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:34:04 GMT

I'm not about to make any sweeping claims about the aesthetic mastery of the fourth entry in the "The Twilight Saga," clumsily subtitled "Breaking Dawn Part 1," and...

Serge Bromberg Premieres Colorized "A Trip to the Moon" & Behind-the-Scenes Doc

Eric Kohn — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 20:39:33 GMT

Usually, the prospects of digital colorization make a large contingency of movie buffs instantly livid. The recent color restoration of George Méliès's seminal 1902 "A Trip to...

Juvenilia As Art: Harold and Kumar and Sonic the Hedgehog.

Eric Kohn — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 16:17:19 GMT

I just picked up SEGA's newly released videogame "Sonic Generations," a throwback to the original "Sonic" game released on SEGA's early platform 20 years ago. The new game...

Brief Thoughts on “Batman: Year One.”

Eric Kohn — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:56:01 GMT

While the web has been drenched with rumors about the upcoming third entry in Christopher Nolan’s live action “Batman” movies, the Dark Knight made a comparatively quieter arrival...

What's Guillermo Del Toro's Transmedia Studio Working On?

Eric Kohn — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 05:40:05 GMT

In today's interview with Guillermo Del Toro (the first of two parts), I spoke to the director at great length about his interest in transmedia, which includes the transmedia studio called Mirada...

Meet Conan O'Brien's Brilliant Editor, Dan Dome.

Eric Kohn — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 05:17:09 GMT

The best thing about this very funny spoof trailer for a nonexistent exploitation movie called "Butterworth," which aired on "Conan" this week, passes by in a matter of seconds: ...

David Wain Discusses "Darkon," Screening This Week in New York!

Eric Kohn — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 15:59:34 GMT

indieWIRE's 15th anniversary series at the 92YTribeca comes to a close this week with a screening co-hosted by our parent company SnagFilms. As the curator of this little program, I invited Snag...

Rex Reed Handicaps "The Myth of the American Sleepover" on Metacritic.

Eric Kohn — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:39:23 GMT

As if you needed another reminder that review aggregators are better for finding reviews rather than measuring them, check out this list of reviews for "The Myth of the American Sleepover," opening...

William Mapother is Creepy, But Not in "Another Earth."

Eric Kohn — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 09:15:20 GMT

When I saw "Another Earth" at Sundance earlier this year, I was caught off guard by the presence of William Mapother. A cousin of Tom Cruise, Mapother recently played the eerie "Other" Ethan on ABC's...

"Our Time," A Documentary About Today's American Youth.

Eric Kohn — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 13:16:28 GMT

I've been really curious about "Our Time," a documentary directed by Matt Heineman and Matt Wiggins about four recent college grads traveling the country in a quest to understand it. I have yet to...