The horror of Islamic honor killings is the central point of Shan Khan’s impressive directorial debut, Honour, but the film resembles more of a low-budget Jason Bourne flick rather than a cultural investigation. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, however. The luminous performance of Aiysha Hart and Khan’s slick style make the film more than…
Israeli director Rama Burshtein’s powerfully moving Fill the Void (original title, “Lemale et ha’halal”), Israel’s submission to the 2012 Oscars, is about love and marriage but, in the Orthodox Hasidic community in Tel Aviv, they do not necessarily go together like a horse and carriage. Hadas Yaron, winner of the Best Actress Award at the…
Albert Camus said, “The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.” These words become prophetic in Romanian director Cristian Mungui’s Beyond the Hills, a powerful tale of religious and emotional obsession that leads to tragic consequences. Like…
It seems strange to criticize a movie for its beauty, especially considering the chief architect of that beauty is a filmmaker as visually and poetically gifted as Ang Lee, but beauty is exactly what fells the beast in Lee’s glossy Life of Pi. Adapted rather faithfully from Yann Martel’s celebrated 2001 novel of the same…
Once thought to be a sort of incendiary indictment of Scientology, Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master turns out to have much more on its mind and is far less easily described. Often dipping into non-narrative space and at times seemingly impenetrable, Anderson’s sixth feature is focused on the post-war journey of drifter, loner, and spiritually…
The upcoming movie The Master is going to raise a lot eyebrows in Hollywood. Many have already dismissed it as the 1950’s drama is said to be loosely based on L. Ron Hubbard and his founding of the Church of Scientology (many in the industry are Scientologists). It stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lancaster Dodd,…
There are several factoids I learned after watching The Wicker Tree, the 39 years in the making sequel to cult favorite “The Wicker Man.” For one, nuclear power plants make all men who drink or bathe in its cooling source sterile (although on the flip side it also grants them the gift of being able…
