MUBI Blog

ROMAN POLANSKI FREE!

The week began with a bang, with news that Swiss authorities would not be extradicting Roman Polanski to the US. He’s a free man. Great news to some, rotten news to others. Follow the debate in The Notebook and the Forums. Meantime, here’s a quick guide to what else is going on at MUBI and The Auteurs.

WHAT’S WITH THE NORMAN ROCKWELL REVIVAL?

And what’s he got to do with movies anyway? As Adrian Curry explained the other day, a little bit more than most of us would’ve guessed. It’s not just that his champions (and big-time collectors), Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, are throwing him an exhibition at the Smithsonian; Rockwell was commissioned to design a handful of movie posters as well — with intriguing results.

LE CINÉMA D’AGNÈS VARDA

These languid summer days are perfect for catching up with the work of Agnès Varda, a lively and mighty force in cinema over the past several decades. You may know the classics (Cleo from 5 to 7 and so on), but we’ve got a slew of rarities you probably won’t be able to catch anywhere else.

IF YOU ONLY SEE ONE MOVIE THIS WEEK

Well, it’s going to be Christopher Nolan’s Inception, isn’t it? But then what? If you’re in New York, may we recommend catching a Straub-Huillet, a Parajanov or, say, a Rossellini at the Anti-Biopics series? And for those in San Francisco, the Silent Film Festival is one spectacular event.

ESSENTIAL SUMMER READING

Dominik Graf, the Berlin School and historian and theorist Thomas Elsaesser figure prominently in the new issue of Senses of Cinema. And Film Comment features Paul Brunick on the state of film criticism, plus his annotated blog roll of the “Top Film Criticism Sites.”

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