Of course, the historical Hugh Glass, legendary nineteenth-century frontiersman left for dead by his fellows after surviving a horrific grizzly bear attack, never had a half-Native American son. But neither did he violently confront the traitor who left him for dead and murdered the aforementioned imagined son. It’s also improbable that during his journey he was rescued and aided by a lone Pawnee elder. We know this because we have authentic

There is a moment in Paolo Sorrentino’s YOUTH when the aging conductor and composer, played by Michael Caine, stops in a beautiful European meadow to watch the cows. At first we are listening to each dong of a cowbell as a separate sound. Slowly he begins to hear the music hidden inside them. With a bit of imagination, the conductor soon raises a hand to conduct. If the film has a metaphor, this is it. It takes every random "dong" and connects them into a symphony. When not conducting cows, the conductor has retreated to a luxury spa-hotel that might be Purgatory.

The Cold War, which provides the historical context for Steven Spielberg's new film BRIDGE OF SPIES, is one of modern history's more stupid phases (BRIDGE OF SPIES is based on real historical events), a Thanksgiving Day parade of hypocrites high on reefer-madness paranoia about the other guy. That era gave us doctrines, an arms race, the constant threat of mutually-assured destruction and a movie franchise

In 1974 Philipe Petit, the French wirewalker, attempted and achieved the impossible. How often can a human being say that? Yes, people are capable of extraordinary feats, yes, there are always more difficult tasks to complete, races to win, higher summits to conquer, new worlds to discover, unknown chasms to explore, masterpieces to create but… I would venture to say that this man truly did the impossible, the equivalent of which no one

"Ghosts are real. That much I know." So begins Guillermo del Toro’s spellbinding dark fairy tale, CRIMSON PEAK. Set in the late 1900s it follows aspiring fiction writer Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) as she falls for, and marries, a penniless, seductively handsome English Baronet, Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston). Along with his older sister, Lucille (Jessica Chastain), Thomas brings Edith back from

If we posit that a great film is both cinematography and story, EVEREST is not great as it does extremely well in the first area but fares poorly in the second. Obviously, Everest, the mountain, summit of the world, films magnificently. It is mighty, spectacular, awe-inspiring, frightening. It is both threatening and irresistible. Irresistible to the multitude striving to climb to the top or “summit,” to use their word.

Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig who gave us the wondrous FRANCES HA are back with MISTRESS AMERICA The two, partners in life as in art, wrote the script together. Baumbach directs and Gerwig acts. Given its creators it’s unfair but inevitable to compare this film to the previous one. All the qualities that were there are here, including superb acting and hilarious script with a serious permanent undertow

David Foster Wallace is the much-celebrated author of the one thousand-page plus novel “Infinite Jest.” Not an easy read. But then, neither is “Ulysses,” or “Gravity’s Rainbow,” George Perec’s “Life: a User’s Manual” nor any number of boundary-blowing, epoch-making masterpieces that we crack open from time to time and know we will read some day. “Infinite Jest” I’d already given up on and picked up again several times.

Amy (Amy Schumer) is a single girl living the life in Manhattan. Well-trained into shunning monogamy by her offensive, lovable father (Colin Quinn) who a couple of decades ago abandoned Amy, her sister Kim and their mother, she works at a sleazy men’s magazine by day and is into some serious bed-hopping at night. She uses men as one does tissues, rumpling them into a ball and tossing them in a corner when she’s done.

Writer/Director Diane Bell’s sophomore film BLEEDING HEARTS, a selection at the last Tribeca Film Festival, was a very personal journey that combined her own experiences with the challenge of making a film with strong female characters. In this case sisters played by Jessica Biel and Zosia Mamet. Biel’s May is a yoga instructor (a vocation once held by Bell in real life) living a clean, somewhat boring life