Juan-Carlos Selznick, Author at Chico News & Review • Page 2 of 3

The year on screens

As the world crumbles, and us with it, there may be little consolation in hearing that there was much, maybe too much, to be grateful for in the year’s movies. But consolation—whether large or small—is […]

White Lotus, westerns, windmills

I was late getting fully started on The White Lotus (HBO Max), but upon hearing that the start of Season 2 had a reference to Chico State in it, I went directly into that season […]

‘If he kills you, I’ll kill him’

Dead for a Dollar is the new western (now streaming on Amazon and Apple TV) from veteran action director Walter Hill (Hard Times, The Driver, Streets of Fire, Southern Comfort, as well as noteworthy westerns […]

Earthly delights

A question: The very best movies of the 21st Century, so far, are mostly TV series—The Sopranos, Deadwood, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Top of the Lake, Longmire, Better Call Saul, Bosch, 1883, etc. Yes, no, […]

Infinity mirrors

In 1996, French auteur Olivier Assayas made a feature film called Irma Vep with a cat-suited Maggie Cheung starring in the title role. It was a comic drama about the making of a “remake” of […]

Midsummer streaming

The Old Man series (FX network, streaming on Hulu) has Jeff Bridges, John Lithgow, Alia Shawkat and Amy Brenneman in a scaldingly convoluted espionage thriller that speaks of, if not to, the Byzantine geopolitical warfare […]

Ghosts of the west

It was gratifying, but not entirely surprising, to discover—somewhat belatedly—that 1883, the 10-episode “prequel” to the Yellowstone series, is a richly engaging movie experience. Its 10 one-hour-long episodes follow the travails of a westward-bound wagon […]

Lens on history

Over the last couple of months, the film I’ve found most deeply appealing is Navalny, the richly engaging documentary about the high-profile Russian dissident who barely survived an apparent state-sponsored poisoning and, after an extended […]

What’s that sound?

A few days ago, I went to the movies—in a theater. First time in more than two years, and it was also a special occasion in that it involved seeing Memoria, a new film by […]

Beyond the Academy

I’m OK with CODA getting the Best Picture Oscar even though I think The Power of the Dog, Drive My Car and Licorice Pizza are the best of the nominated films. After all, Oscar does […]

New world cinema

Notes from my “stream-and-dream” ledger for the past month: When the home-made sex video of a schoolteacher (Katia Parscariu) gets exposed on the Internet, tabloid scandal and cultural controversy erupt. The scandal-mongering spills over into […]

Film overflow

Once again, the first weeks of the new year are yielding up a good many films that, if streamed just a little bit sooner, might have been included in my musings on last year’s best […]

Film flood 2021

Okay, first things first. An abundance of good stuff found its way into the Stream & Dream screening room during 2021. And the best of it, as of the penultimate week of December, looks like […]

Still streaming in place

With the streaming season stretching on, here are some of the most recent film highlights. Passing (Netflix) A deft and at times brilliant adaptation of Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel, Passing is remarkable in that respect […]

Keeping watch over the humans

Stray, a ruggedly poetic documentary about stray dogs in Istanbul, has some extraordinary moments of eerie emotion in it, including one near the finish that’s as haunting and amazing as anything I’ve encountered in movies […]

Chico News & Review

Articles by Juan-Carlos Selznick