West Side Story 2021 might just be a perfect film. This is no mean feat considering the stunning stage musical as well as the equally perfect big screen adaptation from 1961. The new version proves equal to the challenge of adapting the beloved property, as 60 years after Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins delivered their…
“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…
Miao Wang’s Maineland is a seemingly straight-forward documentary feature profiling Chinese students — members of the enormous wave of “parachute students” — competing to study abroad in the United States. Filmed over three years in both China and the U.S., the film follows two affluent and cosmopolitan teenagers as they settle into boarding school in…
There is nothing remotely foreign about the well-known martial artist/action star Jackie Chan, as he has been kicking butt and taking numbers (mainly in humorous fashion) for nearly 50 years. Undoubtedly skillful and infectiously impish throughout his illustrious career in action cinema, Chan — whether in wild playful mode or pensive yet penetrating form —…
