“Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home” — John Howard Payne The Smothers Brothers they are not. Brothers Eli (John C. Reilly, “Kong: Skull Island”) and Charlie (Joaquin Phoenix, “You Were Never Really Here”) Sisters, known to all as the Sisters Brothers, are deadly…
American Dresser is a simple road-trip tale of a weary older man who, after discovering a secret shortly after his wife dies, embarks on a coast-to-coast motorcycle trip to help exorcise some demons, get some closure, and enjoy life once more. It’s exceptionally well acted and directed, with just a few potholes in the plot…
I watched Support the Girls right on the heels of “We the Animals” and “Crazy Rich Asians,” and it requires no stretch of the imagination to view this coincidental triple-feature as three distinct and distinctive representations of the meaning and function of family. The employees of Double Whammies — particularly the young, attractive, well endowed…
“How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man?” — Bob Dylan For many, playing a game of soccer on a Sunday afternoon is a pleasant way to spend time with friends before the next work week begins. For a group of undocumented workers living in the Sunset Park neighborhood…
“Of all the errands life seems to be running, of all the mysteries that enchant us, love is my favorite” — Diane Ackerman When we think of radicals and revolutionary figures of the sixties, names like Ché Guevara or Stokely Carmichael might come up, but probably the last person we would think of would be…
Are You Glad I’m Here is the first feature film directed by Noor Gharzeddine, a Lebanese-American director who appears equally at home in presenting Kirsten (Tess Harrison), a 24-year-old American who has found herself working as an English teacher in Beirut as she does in portraying the middle-class Lebanese family that lives next door. It…
The Rider is an unflinching tribute (and one that made me flinch) to those who fully inhabit the present and “live their lives 8 seconds at a time.” It’s this short term thinking that renders it impossible for rider Brady Blackburn (Brady Jandreau) to dream of a life beyond those series of seconds at the…
