The most frightening film of 2020 is not a horror flick. It’s a film about our electoral process. Chris Durrance and Barak Goodman’s stunning and eye-opening documentary examines how gerrymandering (the act of manipulating boundaries of an electoral constituency to favor one political party) is a very real and very present danger to our American democracy. This could be the most important film of 2020.

On January 29th, 1979, President Jimmy Carter and Chinese Deputy Premier Deng Xiaoping signed historic accords, reversing years of U.S. opposition to China. But now, on the forty-year anniversary of this normalization, the U.S. and China are at the threshold of what many fear is a new cold war.

“Better Angels,” a documentary directed by two-time Academy Award winner

Politics in the horror genre is a tricky thing. If done incorrectly, a film’s political slant can hurt its narrative. When done right, a political take can enhance a film’s potency. The late George A. Romero and horror film legend John Carpenter are the two filmmakers who expertly infused their political messages within their works.

Romero, with his series of “...of the Dead” films, made each one a reflection and commentary

These are tough times for movie lovers. Theaters across the country are closed, many libraries shuttered and people are staying home. However, there is still a way to enjoy watching films. In fact, it may give people a chance to see the more classic cinema that they’ve otherwise been ignoring. The Turner Classics Network (TCM) runs films 24/7 and perhaps the highlight of their line-up is the weekly segment “Noir Alley” hosted by noted

The one and only Phillip Marlowe. Created by Raymond Chandler, he is perhaps the best-known of all private eyes. Almost everyone knows his name. A good private detective thriller can be cinematic gold and if Phillip Marlowe is your guide through the mystery, all the better.

Marlowe is a tough-talking, hard-living, private eye who dives headfirst into the underbelly of his cases and always gets in

Canceled, not canceled. And now--maybe--merely postponed? The Cannes Festival, in a PR pas-de-deux that has sowed confusion and let on few key details, has issued a press release last night. In its usual imperfect English (but their heart was in it), the Cannes communiqué went :

"Today, we have made the following decision : The Festival de Cannes cannot be held on the scheduled dates, from May 12

Beginning your crime film with “The Passenger” by Iggy Pop is a marvelous idea and one that excitingly sets the tone for the very clever and labyrinthine noir “La Gomera” (“The Whistlers” in the English version). With his latest film director Corneliu Porumboiu has created a fantastic and riveting pop-culture cops-and-mobsters film that occasionally gives way to philosophical leanings.

A number of movie goers will surely identify with me when I say that, Swedish actor Max Von Sydow, who died on March 8th at the age ninety, has been part of my committed film-lover’s life for as far back as I can remember. His tall-as-a-tree lean—-later gnarled--body, his long face more and more gloomy as the years went by, were part of innumerable experiences, from the most esoteric Ingmar Bergman often indecipherable

Much like the relationships between the native-born children and their Mexican immigrant parents in the new Netflix series “Gentefied,” many of the actors in the series grew up under similar circumstances.

“I’m first-generation born here. My mom speaks English fluently and perfectly because she was actually born in the Dominican Republic but moved to New York when she was young,” said actress

In this age of YouTube and Twitter, there is simply too much information coming at us twenty-four hours a day. Everyone with a computer is an armchair newscaster. And above all else, when it comes to films everyone is a critic.

What people don’t seem to understand, or rather, what has become lost, is the truth that film criticism is, or can be, an art. No writer before nor since