What a triumphant win for Steve McQueen, last night, for his “12 Years a Slave.” Let us hope that more black filmmakers will advance in their craft and career and reach their place in the sun some day, too (Lee Daniels and Ryan Coogler of “Fruitvale Station” have been leading the charge). The international film industry is rather too homogeneous, color-wise, so last night’s mega-win for the adaptation of Solomon Northup’s

Among movies about race in America, how many great films have been made about slavery? We’ve seen gentle drivers ("Driving Miss Daisy"), sisterhoods of maids ("The Help") and pizza places going up in smoke for our sins ("Do the Right Thing"). Most of these films focus on the sixties or the modern day. Even Lincoln barely touches on slavery as more than legal theory.

This enormous gap

Film excellence at the Toronto International Film Festival which ended […]

A man. A woman. An underground train. Traded looks. Traded fantasies. No one looking. No one aware. The train stops. The lick of her lips. The ring on her finger. Will they? Won’t they? The crowd in the station. The man is Brandon. We soon meet the rest of him. His job. His coldness. His naked body wrapped in blue sheets. His overpowering sexual impulse. Alleys. Back doors, Luxury hotels. His computer tracked off to clean porn.

Steve McQueen's second feature reprises his collaboration with Hunger star Michael Fassbender and the effect is no less spellbinding. This time, instead of starving for a cause, Fassbender plays a man at the mercy of his urges rather than in control of them: a sex addict. In the frenetic world of New York City it's easy for Fassbender's Brandon to keep his private life a secret. When a vat of pornography is discovered on his work computer

The surprise winner of the 68th Venice Film Festival was […]

“Hunger” recounts the real events of the blanket strikes in […]