recent posts
- Zach Bryan Buys the On the Road Scroll/ Happy Birthday, Jack Kerouac!
- William S. Burroughs/ Nova ’78 at MoMA/ Remembering James Grauerholz
- Jacob Elordi in Wuthering Heights: Monster Mash
- Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent: A Cool Brazilian Gets an Oscar Nod
- Now on Oscar’s Short List: Holding Liat, a Documentary about the Harrowing Wait for a Hostage Freed from Gaza
Category: Film
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“We still have not come to grips with World War II,” asserted newsman Tom Brokaw, the author of several books on the subject. “It was the largest event in the history of mankind.” Moderator of a panel on Monday night following Netflix’s preview screening of its series, Five Came Back, at Alice Tully Hall, Brokaw…
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A genuine Holocaust era heroine, Antonina Zabinski could charm a tiger. Now her story is a major motion picture: The Zookeeper’s Wife, based on Diane Ackerman’s 2007 book on this historic figure has everything: animals in mortal danger, an excellent cast led by Jessica Chastain as Antonina, Daniel Bruhl as Lutz Heck, Der Fuhrer’s chief…
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Cries from Syria, a documentary on HBO, tells such a horrific story, unfortunately the one you know if you’ve been paying attention to Syria, its government’s military efforts against protestors, use of chemical weapons on its citizens, and general violation of human rights. The regime claims it is protecting the country from terrorists. Most often…
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A photo exhibit at the Film Society of Lincoln Center features color stills from the set of Fellini’s 8 1/2, the maestro’s last film in black & white. Photographer Paul Ronald shot them as an aside while he was shooting black & white production stills, and of course, as these things go, the cache was…
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At the outset of her one-woman show, Turning Page, perfectly staged in the intimacy of Dixon Place on Chrystie Street, Angelica Page explains why her mother’s spirit keeps calling out to her. For one thing, Geraldine Page was an Academy Award winning actress who rose to fame in several Tennessee Williams’ plays, and despite the…
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Sting and J. Ralph composed the song, “The Empty Chair” for the documentary Jim: The James Foley Story. As you see the clip of Sting performing that song at Bataclan, the historic Paris theater, for its opening one year after ISIS terrorists gunned down 89 people there, you cannot help but register that in “The…
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At a wall-to-wall packed opening at the Grey Art Gallery, photographer/ filmmaker / musician John Cohen held court in front of a video installation of some vintage photographs he took at the heyday of artist owned galleries on 10th Street. Talk about a fascinating pocket of art history! “Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York…
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On inauguration eve, a different man of wealth was feted at MoMA, at a special screening of Becoming Warren Buffett. HBO’s Richard Pepler described the film’s subject as a man of decency, integrity, and character. Directed by Peter Kundhardt, this riveting film illuminates the life and work of Buffett, born in the depression in Omaha,…
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This is a sign of things to come in the next four years: Meryl Streep outspoken about the performance of the year, the one that stunned her, and it wasn’t even in a fiction film. It was a real life public figure—unnamed—who mocked a disabled reporter. “Disrespect incites disrespect.” We need the press to hold…
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Sunny Pawar, in case you have not yet seen this movie, is “Lion”’s secret weapon. Pint-sized and precocious, Pawar, now eight, was six when he inhabited the role of Saroo as a young boy separated from his mother in a remote area of India. When he began his acting career starring in this movie, he…
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Why is this night different from all other [awards] nights? New York Magazine film critic and emcee for this annual awards fete David Edelstein had some answers about honoring the storytelling but Mark Ruffalo, on hand to present the Best Screenplay award to Kenneth Lonergan for “Manchester By the Sea,” put it succinctly: the speeches…
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The quiet charm of Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson, his latest movie, about a poet evoking the time and place of predecessor wordsmiths William Carlos Williams and Allen Ginsberg, impresses with vitality, a life force. So much, that two-time Academy Award nominee for Best Actress, Sylvia Miles, quipped, she paid her academy dues just to nominate this work…
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Pedro Almodovar loves women. His films feature memorable female roles: look at Kika, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Talk to Her, Volver, yet another great part for his protégé Penelope Cruz, and now Julieta, the titular protagonist penned for two fine Spanish actresses: Emma Suarez as the mature Julieta, and Adriana Ugarte,…
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How do you bring the brilliant, Pulitzer Prize winning Fences, to the screen? You stick close to August Wilson’s jazz poetry. This week Fences was celebrated with a screening at Lincoln Center’s jazz venue, Rose Hall. The movie’s director Denzel Washington led his killer hand-picked cast including Viola Davis, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Mykelti Williamson, Russell Hornsby—Denzel…
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When I met with Gaston Pavlovich at the Ritz Carlton to talk about his work on Martin Scorsese’s Silence, the film’s producer expressed doubt: would movie goers come to this two hour plus film set in 17th century Japan about the persecution of Christians? I had just seen Silence the night before with an awe-struck audience;…
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“If I were a woman,” Rob Reiner said in a video of congratulatory messages for Annette Bening at the Plaza Hotel where this sublime actress was feted at the New York Stage & Film Gala, “I’d be jealous.” Even those of us attending, with so many who worked with her or want to work with…
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You don’t have to have a passion for Pagliacci to know the life of a clown has a tragic dimension. Without going to operatic extremes, The Comedian, a movie starring Robert DeNiro as a standup potty-mouthed performer, has a dark side. DeNiro developed the project with Art Linson over eight years, he said at a…
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Even in what we now know as the last few months of Fidel Castro’s life, a hope for change in Cuba is documented in two upcoming HBO films: Olatz Lopez Garmendia’s Patria O Muerte: Cuba, Fatherland, or Death and Jon Alpert’s Mariela Castro’s March: Cuba’s LGBT Revolution. Patria O Muerte was featured at the recent New York…
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Two excellent films bring a dark day to life: Peter Berg’s Patriots Day and Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg’s Marathon The Patriot’s Day Bombing. Peter Berg’s Patriots Day, a new feature on the Boston marathon bombing refreshes us on the details of terrorism through the eyes of a policeman working that day. Mark Wahlberg stars, portraying…
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The mesmerizing scandal of Amanda Knox, the young American student on trial in Perugia for killing her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, returns in a documentary on Netflix by Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn called Amanda Knox. What more could we possibly need to know about this case of media mediated justice? I met the filmmakers…
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The timing of Benjamin Ree’s documentary Magnus is pure genius. What can be better than watching a film about Magnus Carlson while the 2016 World Chess Championship is being contested at the South Seaport in New York City? A vivid portrait of the 25-year-old world chess champion’s life, talent and dedication, the film offers a…
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