Monthly Archives: November 2017

    Long before “Seinfeld” gave us “Festivus,” “feats of strength” were a regular feature of vaudeville, touring circuses and The Roaring ’20s. That was the heyday of  “The Mighty Atom,” a steel-bending, car-pulling (with his teeth, or his hair), … Continue reading →

Not everyone who survived the Holocaust is cut out to bear witness on it for the rest of us. Some never got over the trauma, never wanted to mention it, even to family, never wore short sleeves so that others … Continue reading →

Before Watergate, the story that made the once-sleepy, provincial Washington Post’s political reputation was the publishing of “The Pentagon Papers.” Steven Spielberg has rounded up Oscar winners Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, and vast collection of top flight character actors … Continue reading →

Kenneth Branagh’s “Murder on the Orient Express” shimmers off the screen, a film that luxuriates in luxury. It has scale and detail, “Zhivago” lush in every frame, care in every dazzling and perfectly appointed camera angle. We may have forgotten … Continue reading →

Barbara Kopple is one of the legends of documentary filmmaking. “Harlan County, USA,” a riveting cinema verite account of a bitterly fought miner’s strike in Kentucky, collected an Oscar in 1976. “Shut Up and Sing” was a stinging remembrance of … Continue reading →

Remember all that fuss, the actors who quit “Fifty Shades of Grey” before the cameras rolled? Whatever the financial payoff, three films into this franchise have proven this much. The sterile, kinky female wish fulfillment fantasy trilogy hasn’t made stars … Continue reading →

      Two children, separated by half a century, experience the marvels of the Big City as they explore it, alone, in “Wonderstruck,” Todd Haynes’ fanciful film of the Brian Selznick novel. Adults are invited to tap into the … Continue reading →

In the interest of transparency, and perhaps to avoid shipping out another form email to a studio publicist irate over which “embargo” they’ve placed on whatever movie they have entering the marketplace, let me put a few thoughts down here … Continue reading →

Emily has that “quirky girl vibe” going. She knows it. And she resents it. Because even though she’s a comedienne, gamely having a go at sketch comedy/conceptual comedy in Los Angeles, she knows her place on the pecking order. “A … Continue reading →

What a difference a title makes, right? I mean, who’s going to buy tickets to a screen romance titled “Holding Pattern.” This thin, slow Jake Goldberger dramedy sat in cinema limbo until somebody had the bright idea of re-titling it … Continue reading →