Many short films tend to be comedy-oriented but not all of them are funny. An exception is “Lemon,” which was shown as part of shorts program at the last Tribeca Festival. In the twelve minutes that make up its length I found myself laughing more often than I do during some feature-length films.

Written and directed by Timothy Michael Cooper (“Concierge: The Series”) “Lemon” provide

The footage is muddy, but we see it clearly enough: a pink dolphin—one of many endangered species populating the Brazilian Amazon—is harpooned to death by a group of fishermen, to be used as bait for the pirapitinga, a breed of scavenger catfish. This is just the beginning of Mark Grieco’s wrenching documentary “The River Below,” currently showing at Tribeca. Filmed over two difficult years

To most people Benjamin Millepied is both the choreographer of Darren Aronofsky’s Oscar-nominated film "Black Swan" and the husband of Oscar-winner Natalie Portman, for the same film. In the world of ballet, however, Benjamin Millepied has been a trailblazer for young dancers as the Director of the Paris Opera Ballet during a span of two years starting in 2014.

I fear I might suffer from a certain cultural disconnect reviewing Halkawt Mustafa’s “El Clásico,” the winner of Tribeca’s 2016 award for Best Cinematography in an International Narrative Feature Film. The film hinges on a presumption that football, or “soccer” as it’s known here in the States, is a powerful enough force that the goodwill of one of its players can literally be enough to dissuade deeply-felt prejudices

The pregnant women in the marketplace avoid her foodstand, afraid […]

Who is Jeremiah Tower? Does anyone know? Jeremiah Tower is the first American celebrity chef, a culinary pioneer of American cuisine who started rising to fame in the seventies and has been recognized amongst foodies and culinary circles as the genius behind the style of cooking known as California cuisine. A solitary, outrageous and charismatic figure, Jeremiah Tower makes for a fascinating documentary subject 

I remember how many people were caught totally off guard by Ricky Gervais’s “The Invention of Lying” (2009), a film with a simple premise about a man who could lie in a world where nobody else could, when it suddenly became a vicious condemnation of religion. Gervais’s character, the liar, invented the concept of a “Man in the Sky” who would take good people to an afterlife if they followed “ten rules.”

As the credits rolled for Tom Tykwer’s “A Hologram for the King,” my friend and colleague Hubert Vigilla from over at Flixist.com leaned over and whispered, “This is the film Cameron Crowe has been trying to make for years.” “Yeah,” I replied. “If Samuel Beckett had written the first act.” I suspect many people might be put off from the film’s tonal whiplash. What begins as an Absurdist (in the theatrical sense) fever dream

“The first thing my commander heard was “uh oh.” Those […]

I’ve restarted this review four times because I can’t quite figure out how to marshal my thoughts on Cecilia Aldarondo’s "Memories of a Penitent Heart." Some documentaries strike you because they focus on interesting topics like wars, science, or bizarre people. Some are necessary historical documents, capturing footage of transformative moments that changed the course of humanity. "Memories of a Penitent Heart" claims to be neither.