Film School: Our Chief Film Critic Justin Tanner Recommends This Classic!

Film School: Our Critic Justin Tanner Recommends You See This Classic!
WHY OUR FILM CRITIC JUSTIN TANNER RECOMMENDS THIS CLASSIC
WHY OUR FILM CRITIC JUSTIN TANNER RECOMMENDS THIS CLASSIC
Film School: Why Our Critic Justin Tanner Recommends This Classic
'The Pumpkin Eater' (1964) directed by Jack Clayton, is an achingly brutal analysis of infidelity, jealousy and obsession starring Oscar nominated Anne Bancroft as a woman who can’t seem to stop having children; she is saddled with eight at the top of the film.
Her marriage to a philandering screenwriter (the always terrific Peter Finch), starts to disintegrate when she discovers his affair with her best friend (an unbelievably young Maggie Smith).
Harold Pinter’s script is strange and marvelous, and includes one of the greatest scenes ever captured on film: A brilliantly unhinged monologue delivered to Bancroft while at the hairdressers by the deliciously named Yootha Joyce. Joyce’s character, a lonely desperate woman under an adjacent

03.22.26

People Keep Reinventing The Same Damn Movie’: Cinematographer Roger Deakins On 50 Years Behind The Camera And His Fears For Film’s Future; Master craftsman’s work has lit up everything from Bond to Blade Runner 2049. But as he publishes his memoir, why does he believe the artform he made his name in is in such decline?

Andy Warhol Films, Left Undeveloped for Decades, Come to Light; Many of the newly discovered rolls contained footage that is very much NSFW; Early erotic films

Art of the Heist: Why We Can’t Get Enough of ‘Victimless’ Crime; From Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind to the recent Louvre robbery, what do museum break-ins – real or imagined – reveal about the allure of the thief?

‘I Wasn’t Acting: That Was Me’: How Non-Actors Took Over Oscar Season; From 'One Battle to Another' to 'Marty Supreme,' supermarket magnates, professors and special agents have been stealing scenes on screen

‘We Thought 'Midnight Cowboy' Might End Everybody’s Career’: The Diverse, Disruptive, Oscar-Winning Cinema Of John Schlesinger; In the 60s and 70s, he pioneered kitchen-sink drama and made bisexuality mainstream

Surrealist Auteur Alejandro Jodorowsky Gets the Epic Monograph He Deserves; Taschen is dropping a 2000-page volume filled with material from the filmmaker's decades-spanning archives

Review: Berlinale 2026: İlker Çatak's Clever 'Yellow Letters'; Artists vs Politics

Roger Avary, Oscar-winning co-writer of “Pulp Fiction”, Says He Couldn’t Get a Movie Made Until He Found AI. Now Has Three Upcoming Releases; "According to Avary, simply positioning the company as a technology-driven, AI-based venture unlocked immediate investor interest. “All of a sudden, boom, like that, money gets thrown at it,” he said."

Meet the Artist Who Spent 12 Years Remaking ‘Titanic,’ Shot for Shot; Claudia Bitrán’s DIY remake of James Cameron's epic is sailing into New York at Cristin Tierney Gallery

A Movie Deal Is a Writer’s Dream—or Is It? Five Authors Get Real About the IP Machine

Who Is Very Busy, Early Twenties, Aussie Filmmaker Alice Maio Mackay?

Fans of Biblical Drama ‘The Chosen’ Share How Jesus Series Is Rewriting Hollywood Rules

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Film Stage: 'The Plague' Review: Bullying Drama of Paranoia Requries Suspension of Disbelief

IndieWire: ‘The Plague’ Review: Charlie Polinger’s Debut Takes Body Horror and ‘Lord of the Flies’ Into Extraordinary, Emotional Spaces; Filmmaker Polinger plays with broad riffs on coming-of-age, body horror, and bullying genres to craft something with a potent power
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