Category Archives: Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news

The Rape of Nanking, the 1937 rape and murder rampage by Japanese troops, comes so vividly to life in “The Flowers of War” that you wish the great Chinese director Zhang Yimou had a better movie to put in front … Continue reading →

The family-friendliest movie comedy this holiday season is also the sappiest and schmaltziest.   And thanks to Billy Crystal, the shtickiest.

Growing up in Germany, actress Diane Kruger learned the same things about Marie Antoinette that most people did — that she was hated, that the French called her “The Ice Queen,” that when told the French peasants couldn’t afford the … Continue reading →

Marie Antoinette earns a big-screen makeover in “Farewell, My Queen,” a lavish French period piece based an inspired fictional fancy based on real history.

Scholarship, my favorite grad school professor preached, is “like building a wall. You do it brick by brick.” In “Footnote,” Eliezer Shkolnik has spent his entire life with those bricks. You’d think this Talmudic philologist would have a wall all … Continue reading →

Ex cons, muscleheads, weightlifters. Steroids. A heist. A heist with consequences. Michael Bay teams up two muscle-bound funnymen, Dwayne Johnson and Markl Wahlberg, adds Anthony to the team, sets them off after Tony Shaloub’s ill gotten gains, and has them … Continue reading →

There’s nothing more alarming to power than people organizing themselves to usurp that power. Even if that power is a union, an organization founded to protect the many from the abuses and whims of the few.

Ten years ago, when a then-teenaged Ari Graynor was making her debut on TV’s “The Sopranos,” you’d have been hard pressed to convince her that within a decade she’d be the voice of big screen angst-at-turning-30. No way. “I never … Continue reading →

When was the last time Hollywood gave us a drug dealer as a hero, as comic relief in a drama? It’s not something that happens often in a country where “Just say no” rivals “E pluribus unum” as a national … Continue reading →

 Whip Whitaker had an epic night in Orlando — an all-nighter with a sexy stewardess and much imbibing. A little snif-sniff bump to get him going in the morning? Sure. He puts on his uniform and shows up for work. … Continue reading →