One of the main reasons why words are so fascinating is because they can house inside mutually exclusive meanings. They are the embodiment of freedom, for they can harbor opposite significations while keeping their expressive powers intact. This is the case of the Amharic word difret. On the one hand, this word embodies the very…
It’s nice to see a film version of an historical incident that that this author had no idea about. As a student of history, I’ve always prided myself on knowing as much as I could on as many subjects in this category as possible; and, like “Argo” (which also featured a classified backdrop) I found…
During World War II, the Nazis plundered an estimated 750,000 artworks from European countries including priceless paintings by Van Gogh, Degas, Vermeer, and Michelangelo. Though many paintings and other significant cultural artifacts were recovered by the “Monuments Men,” many were destroyed or auctioned off at extremely low prices. Today, there are well over 100,000 items…
The success of David Dobkin’s (“Wedding Crashers”) The Judge lies in its ability to sound just like every other story in which a successful prodigal son returns from “the big city” in the midst of personal turmoil to attend a parent’s funeral (“Elizabethtown,” “Garden State,” etc.) when summarized aloud, but play out on screen as…
If ever you were looking for a movie where every day, conversational dialogue is turned into a form of deep, philosophical lecturing, then stop your search now, The Counselor is it. What you’ll also find is it’s a fresh, innovative, suspenseful film that, while suffering at times from a slow, disjointed tempo, has an intriguing…
The Woman in Black, directed by James Watkins (“Eden Lake,” “My Little Eye”) and written by Jane Goldman, is a cinematic adaption of Susan Hill’s popular novel of the same name. Daniel ‘Harry Potter’ Radcliffe plays a young widowed Victorian lawyer named Arthur Kipps, who is forced to leave his young son in London with…
Yes, Daniel Radcliffe can act in something other than a movie with Harry Potter in the title. You can see for yourself in the second teaser trailer for his latest, The Woman in Black. He portrays an English (of course!) lawyer who, upon arriving at a remote village, stumbles on a female ghost with vengeance…
