Michael Nordine

How to Be an L.A. Cinephile

Opportunities to see great movies abound in Los Angeles, but they won't find you. Like a lot else here, they more often come as the result of careful planning and active participation in a small but vocal minority. Three veterans of the local cineaste scene — advertising copywriter Lori Ellison,......

Cinefamily Spotlights Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

Cinefamily’s monthlong “House of Psychotic Women” series starts Feb. 1 with Robert Altman’s phenomenal 3 Women, a dreamlike descent into the subconscious of two women whose personalities slowly merge. And though the alluringly titled screening program inspired by Kier-La Janisse’s just-published book of the same name might appear to be......
Heaven's Gate slowly makes its way to the Egyptian

5 Notoriously Terrible Films That Actually Aren't So Terrible

Over the last six months, Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate has screened to sold-out crowds at the Venice and New York film festivals and received a sumptuous DVD/Blu-ray upgrade courtesy of the Criterion Collection. This is par for the course for a lot of old movies, but more than a little......

Director Sion Sono Exposes the Depravity of Modern Japan

A mainstay of the international festival circuit for well over a decade now, poet-turned-filmmaker Sion Sono is something of a stranger to Los Angeles: Only a handful of his movies has been released here despite courting acclaim and controversy elsewhere around the world. Guilty of Romance and Himizu — which are......