In the city of Timbuktu, the fundamentalist Islamist group Ansar Dine (“defenders of the faith”), wearing black flags to cover their faces, decimated shrines, Dogon wood sculptures, and World Heritage sites, considering them to be examples of idolatry, a sin in Islam. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, Abderrahmane Sissako’s (“Bamako”) Timbuktu…
Cameron Crowe’s latest film, Aloha, his first larger scale project since 2011’s “We Bought a Zoo,” does not, unfortunately, come with the zest and alacrity of it or some of his earlier better works, like “Jerry Maguire.” It is light-hearted, well-intentioned (Hawaiian virtues are espoused) fare tailored to an audience that sees space as something…
San Andreas stars Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson (although ‘The Rock’ is no longer a necessary addition to his name to know who he is) as admirable Search and Rescue helicopter pilot Ray Gaines. He’s the kind of person you want to have around when a pickle jar can’t be opened or when the largest magnitude…
The name “Stephen King” is synonymous with horror and indeed with movies in general. With such famous associations as “The Shining,” “Carrie,” “Misery,” “Salem’s Lot,” “Pet Cemetery” as well as “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile,” not to mention television horror “It,” “The Tommyknockers” and “The Stand,” the King brand is one that continues…
Lack of originality is a major lament of many horror fans in 2015; we devour each and every new film that’s tossed our way, hoping against hope that THIS will be the horror movie that breaks the trend, that THIS will be the one that reminds us what it was like to be really creeped…
Brad Bird, the Academy Award-winning director of such animated classics as “Ratatouille” and “The Incredibles,” has fashioned with Tomorrowland, a clever, but muddled story of a scrappy teen, Casey Newton (Britt Robertson, “The Longest Ride”) and a cockeyed former boy genius, Frank Walker (George Clooney, “The Monuments Men”) who join forces in an attempt to…
According to a 2013 census, 20.7% of Israel’s population are Israeli Arabs, citizens of Israel who consider themselves Palestinian by nationality. The problems that arise from these conflicting allegiances are dramatized in Eran Riklis’(“Zaytoun”) film Dancing Arabs, a title that denotes those who have to straddle two cultures and “dance at two weddings.” Based on…
