In light of his passing, we look at the eclectic work of the man who loved camp, callousness, and everything in between.
Category Archive: Features
Columns, thinkpieces, and opinions on every inch of pop culture.
20 years later, Roland Emmerich’s Revolutionary War drama skewers U.S. history and Mel Gibson’s persona without trying to—or realizing it.
Powerful indies and revisionist superhero series dot some of June’s most addictive home video offerings.
Playing a creator who needs adoration, Philip Seymour Hoffman revels in the idiosyncrasies of famed author Truman Capote in Bennett Miller’s biopic.
After a handful of missteps, Gus Van Sant regained his footing with a solid—if fittingly flawed—indie.
Matthew McConaughey wasted a performance in Gus Van Sant’s most disappointing film, a self-important look at white male redemption.
Glib in concept and garish in emotions, Gus Van Sant’s quirk-fest is a testament to just how grating the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope can be.
Five years on, the sequel to the seminal dude-dancing movie remains a feminist celebration of desire.
Gus Van Sant’s squeaky clean biopic about the famed gay rights activist marks a myopic and pandering misstep in the director’s filmography.
Both tactile and ethereal, Gus Van Sant’s skateboarding drama saw him expand upon his neorealist work that spanned the 2000s.
Kon Ichikawa’s seminal sports documentar about the 1964 Tokyo Olympics receives a pristine 4K restoration courtesy of The Criterion Collection.
Spike Lee’s longtime collaborator talks about using new instruments in his latest score, honoring Black veterans, and representation in film composing.
Gus Van Sant’s Oscar-winning character drama is a safe, middlebrow nuts-and-bolts picture as formative as it is uncreative for the filmmaker.
A look at death as the great equalizer, Gus Van Sant’s Kurt Cobain-inspired drama looks at the decay from man to myth—but never legend.
Bringing the works of Tarr and Akerman to modern America, Gus Van Sant’s drama about student life around a school shooting remains a vital work.
Gus Van Sant’s 1991 queer classic is a mournful tone poem about lost youth, and the intersection between class and queerness.
Gus Van Sant’s remake of the Alfred Hitchcock classic is a cut-and-paste exercise that plays like little more than a rehash of the original.
Gus Van Sant’s queer Western was received with scorn by critics when it first came out, but its celebration of the abject deserves reconsideration.