The term “Cold War,” especially in cinema, usually evokes images of espionage, militarism, geopolitics and stern men speaking tersely in jargon that is only comprehensible to those with a working knowledge of the genre. Pawel Pawlikowski (“The Woman in the Fifth”) defies such expectations with his film Cold War, a starkly beautiful romance that deftly…
If you feel that your body holds two distinct personalities, perhaps one public and the other private, you are not alone. Many people display different sides of their personality at different times. For most people, however, the condition, what might be described as the “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” syndrome, can be classified as “psychological”…
“Life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud” — Yann Martel, Life of Pi Moments of crisis can bring a family closer together but can just as easily rip them apart. In first-time director Elizabeth Chomko’s What They Had,…
The great Japanese director Hiorkazu Koreeda (“The Third Murderer”) continues his exploration of the true meaning of family In Shoplifters (Manbiki kazoku), a quest he began in his award-winning 2013 film, “Like Father, Like Son.” Winner of the Palme d’Or award at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and the first Japanese film to win the…
Robert Redford (“Our Souls at Night”) is an American icon and, in David Lowery’s (“A Ghost Story”) The Old Man and the Gun, has ostensibly made his final curtain call as an actor. Adapted by Lowery from a 2003 article in the New Yorker about Forrest Tucker by David Grann (“The Lost City of Z”),…
In my limited estimation, there are few things more anxiety-inducing than the thought of getting up onstage, all alone but for a sweaty drink and rickety stool, and surrounding yourself with a room full with people waiting for and expecting you to make them laugh out loud. Nina Geld (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, “10 Cloverfield Lane”)…
Music has long been known to bring people together irrespective of language barriers, and few situations require people to come together as crucially as those in which our lives are at stake. Based on a real life hostage incident in Peru, Bel Canto (“beautiful song”) was originally a book written by Ann Patchett about this…
