Britain has a great range of cities, some of which receive extensive cinematic treatment. London is the most iconic, but Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Glasgow have also graced the silver screen. But is there a more evocative, romantic, inspiring and fascinating city than that Las Vegas of the United Kingdom, that Dubai of England,…
Performed at the Swan Theatre in July 1597, “The Isle of Dogs,” a satirical play (now lost) written by Thomas Nashe and Ben Jonson was labeled “seditious, slanderous, and lewd” by the government and led to the arrest of the actors (including Jonson) and the closing of all London theaters for months. The nature of…
Following the release of “Lady Bird,” Anne Helen Petersen wrote a moving essay on the supporting roles of mothers in relation to their daughters’ central stories entitled “Moms Are Main Characters Too.” Petersen writes, “But something you learn after high school is that, without the momentousness of ‘firsts’ . . . and societally ordained milestones…
Altogether, Hostiles is both sprawling and narrow, profoundly tense and equally mellow. That might sound like a film of contradictions — a message too lost in the majestic western landscapes. That’s not quite the case, though. Scott Cooper’s western carries the same slow-burn sensibilities as his 2013 down-home thriller, “Out of the Furnace,” which also,…
I’ll start my review for Wonderstruck like this: If Wonderstruck doesn’t get a nomination for best picture this year then something is horribly wrong. It’s hard to imagine — and I haven’t yet seen — another 2017 film that equals or tops it. Todd Haynes, a director known for bringing queer cinema to the mainstream…
Family love and honor are forged in steel for Haofeng Xu’s dazzling generational epic The Hidden Sword, which crisply chronicles China’s early-to-mid 20th century history of war as seen through the eyes of blade-bearing walnut farmers. One family has the film’s focus while Xu allows a curious concoction of quirky humor, astonishing action, and rippling…
Passengers, the newest Sony Pictures (Village Roadshow) release, directed by Morten Tyldum (“The Imitation Game”), is a visually stunning outer space adventure with a very good cast (Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt, Michael Sheen, Andy Garcia and Laurence Fishburne) that fails to lift off due to an earth-bound, cliché-ridden script. That last item can be blamed…
