Wes Anderson turns fifty today. 50 is a big deal. If you've come this far it probably means one, or both, of two things: (1) you've got awesome survival skills and (2) you're the type of person who looks forward to whatever comes next. I wonder how the passage of time has affected Wes Anderson, our great American filmmaker. Does the spark to create more easily? Or, rather, do he fall into a new project a lot more easily than he did before?
In an odd reactionary display, Steven Spielberg had recently called for a change in the Academy Awards eligibility criteria in order to rule out any chance for the streaming platform Netflix to be able to throw nominees in the race for an Oscar. He lost.The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), which is responsible for handing down the Oscars, announced last week that it would not change the eligibility criteria
With "Birds of Passage" Ciro Guerra, alongside co-director Cristina Gallego, continues his work as historiographer of South America. Guerra is known for his previous work, “El Abrazo de la Serpiente” (“Embrace of the serpent” in the Spanish original), in which a shaman from the Amazon teams up with scientists in searching for a sacred healing plant. This is the first time that Gallego goes behind the camera. She has produced
Given the praise showered on “Us,” the latest by Jordan Peele, I’m beginning to wonder whether this is the same movie I saw as everyone else, a movie that I found neither as original nor as gripping as the director’s previous film “Get Out.” Or maybe I missed the entire point, whatever it was?
A middle-class African American family arrives at their vacation home, in a
After premiering at the Sundance Film Festival last January, “This is not Berlin” (“Esto no es Berlín” in the original Spanish), the fifth feature by writer-director Hari Sama, will have its New York premiere at the upcoming Tribeca Festival, as part of its inaugural Tribeca Critics' Week slate. The festival takes place during April 24 – May 5, 2019.A persuasive autobiographical bildungsroman
You’re not alone if you don’t know much—or anything, for that matter—about the Peterloo Massacre of August 16th, 1819, when a confrontation between protestors in Manchester, England and the British cavalry turned violent. Peasants and tradespeople descended on a Manchester square to air their grievances, only to be met with armed resistance that resulted in well over a dozen deaths and hundreds
Summer 2011. Los Angeles. After he has breakfast, Sam goes home and tears up a note that's stuck to his door. It says that he has five days to pay his rent or else. Between taking a call from his mother, smoking his morning cigarette and oggling his neighbor, Sam doesn't do much else. He's a bit of a dilettante. He notices a strange woman, Sarah (Riley Keough), swimming in his apartment's swimming pool. After she disappears
What's "Game of Thrones," you ask? This Shakesperean tragedy with plenty of parallels to be drawn with our century, chockfull of epic battles, sex and betrayal and set in a fantasy medieval-type atmosphere, depicts the epochal clashes between power-hungry monarchies. Each one wants to seize the iron throne, all this action taking place on a continent named Westeros. Bi-partisan? Mythological? Check and check. The internet is buzzing
Bahar (Golshifteh Farahani) is commander of the Daughters of the Sun battalion in Kurdistan. They are preparing to free her city from the hands of Islamists and find her son who is behind enemy lines. A French journalist on assignment in the area, Mathilde (Emmanuelle Bercot, of "Mon Roi" fame, among others), joins their platoon to cover the offensive and help bring the spotlight on these women warriors. “Girls of the sun"
“Trial by Fire” is the true story of the unlikely bond that developped between a death row inmate (Jack O'Connell) and a mother of two from Houston (Laura Dern) who, although she faced great odds, fought hard for his freedom. Cameron Todd Willingham, a poor, uneducated heavy metal devotee with a violent streak and a criminal record, was convicted of arson-related triple homicide in 1992. During his twelve years