It does feel that the romantic comedy is becoming a lost art. Big movie studios no longer want to invest in it, and if we think back to the biggest one of 2019, it was the movie “Long Shot” starring the odd coupling of Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen. And while it was good and…
For the most part, hard luck familial dramas have the potential for being notoriously manipulative on an emotional scale. However, when done remarkably well — with the right precision of pathos and truth — such melodramas can resonate and overcome their soapy constraints. Director/co-writer Jake Scott (“Welcome to the Rileys”) oversees such a one with…
You don’t need to be rich or Asian to enjoy this film, but it helps if you are crazy. Unless you sneaked aboard NASA’s InSight Lander, you may have heard that John M. Chu’s (“Now You See Me 2”) satirical Crazy Rich Asians is the first Hollywood film since 1993’s “The Joy Luck Club” to…
The Light of Hope (La llum d’Elna), a Spanish-language film directed by Silvia Quer from a script by Margarita Melgar, begins in a celebratory mood, as Pat, a boy of nine or ten, runs through the grounds of an old estate in the French countryside, threading his way through a beehive of activity. What is…
From North America to Scandinavia, from southern Europe to the Middle East, from the Himalayas to Australia, local myths are a common cultural feature. From the Jersey Devil to the Loch Ness Monster, from the Bunyip to the Yeti, people in particular areas perpetuate tales of mysterious creatures that appear and disappear. While never fully…
Film critic and current director of the New York Film Festival, Kent Jones’ first feature, Diane, offers a psychological portrait of a woman whose attempts to reach out to others hides her own inability to forgive herself for her past misdeeds. A 70-year-old divorced woman living in rural Massachusetts, Diane (Mary Kay Place, “Downsizing”) fills…
“I feel like I am the moon, so bright. But after a while, the brightness is fading away” — Tantra The Persian poet Rumi said, “The nature of reality is this: It is hidden, and it is hidden, and it is hidden” In Bali, Sekala and Niskala refer to the everyday world we see through…
