Madison Miller was named after "Splash." Her love of film (and mermaids) inevitably followed. She keenly observes the inflight entertainment selections of her fellow travelers, and judges them accordingly. More of her musings can be found at www.reviewfromthetop.com.
The story of A Woman’s Life (original title “Une vie”) centers around Jeanne Le Perthuis des Vauds (Judith Chemla, “In the Name of My Daughter”). Like most women of her time and place (19th-century France), she exists only to suitably and fruitfully marry. She spends her days reading or playing backgammon with her parents, engaging…
In Chinese culture, the number three is considered lucky for its similarity to the character meaning “life” or “to give birth.” As such, Mountains May Depart makes no small use of significant triptychs in telling its story. The film is segmented into three disparate chapters and time periods; its three main characters are caught up…
Set in post World War II Mississippi, Mudbound — based on Hillary Jordan’s Bellwether Prize-winning novel — tells the story of Henry and Laura McAllan, a white farming family, and Hap and Florence Jackson, the black sharecroppers who live on and work their land. Both families have — among other similarities and commonalities — relatives…
Adam is a man (although not the first) living with his wife in the congested holy city of Nazareth. He is a member of the Christian Arab community, which is a population in decline in these parts. As the Angel Gabriel descended on Nazareth to announce the coming of the Messiah, Holy Air opens with…
We have a story in my family. I was three years old and grappling with the crisis of identity and insane jealousy that accompanied the new baby sister in my orbit. It must have been October because a small pumpkin was within my small reach. I seized said pumpkin and hurled it at said little…
“It was too directly bound to its own anguish to be anything other than a cry of negation; carrying within itself, the seeds of its own destruction.” In August 1966, Mason Williams hurled a Royal typewriter from the open window of a Buick Le Sabre speeding down Highway 91 outside Las Vegas. Patrick Blackwell photographed…
Here’s the thing about travel nightmares and existential crises, we’ve all had them. Jungle, based on Israeli adventurer, author and humanitarian Yossi Ghinsberg’s memoir of the same name, puts both on display to horrifying effect. This travel diary gone awry does to hiking in the Amazon what “Brokedown Palace” did to Thailand (in my 14-year…
