Dragging Kennedy Into a New Fight
At its best, counterfactual or "virtual" history (to use Harvard historian Niall Ferguson's term), the exploration of what might have happened if history had not taken a certain turn, can be a...
View ArticlePierre Rissient Is the Man To Know
A simple Internet search for the name Pierre Rissient turns up little more than an assistant-director credit on Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless," two director credits of Mr. Rissient's own for films made...
View ArticleWaiting for Oscar
Each September, the fall movie season springs to life with the same one-two punch: the Venice International Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival. In the span of only three weeks,...
View ArticleBette Davis Gets Own Postage Stamp
Movie legend Bette Davis is being remembered on a new U.S. postage stamp that does that iron-willed image justice. The 42-cent commemorative stamp, being released Thursday in Boston, features a...
View ArticleRyan O'Neal, Son Arrested for Drugs
Ryan O'Neal and his son were arrested Wednesday morning after authorities said they found drugs at the actor's Malibu home during a routine probation check. Investigators suspect both men had...
View ArticleMovies in Brief: 'A Thousand Years of Good Prayers'
Mr. Shi (Henry O), the lead character in Wayne Wang's new film, "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers," suffers from the occasional translation problem. Visiting America from China, he interacts with...
View ArticleFight for Your Right To Fight: 'Battle in Seattle'
One doesn't have to agree politically with a movie to appreciate the skill with which it was made or, for that matter, to enjoy it. To combine a bad film, however, with worse politics is to add insult...
View ArticleDoom With a View: 'Lakeview Terrace'
Two years ago, Neil LaBute, the bad boy button-pusher of cinema who has lately been more the rage onstage than on-screen, unveiled a remake of Robin Hardy's 1973 men-versus-women thriller "The Wicker...
View ArticleCuban Moviemaker Humberto Solas Dies at 66
Cuban filmmaker Humberto Solas has died from cancer at age 66. His works include the seminal 1968 film "Lucia," which examined the Cuban woman during three distinct historical periods. Working with the...
View ArticleHow the West Was Lost: 'Appaloosa'
Whenever more than two movies set in the Old West come out, reflexive discussions about the rebirth of the Western sprout up like mining towns and just as quickly fade away. It certainly happened last...
View ArticleSeeing Things for the First Time: 'Ghost Town'
Love may be a many-splendored thing, but when it comes to capturing the euphoria of new romance on the silver screen, it can be a hard sell. We all know the flashy love epics, where seduction occurs...
View ArticleThe Fleeting Passion of Jean Vigo
It is difficult to find even lovers of film who are familiar with the gentle magic of the late French director Jean Vigo. Most have never heard his name, not that they can be blamed: Vigo was born in...
View ArticleMovies in Brief: 'All of Us'
The documentary "All of Us" follows a young doctor doing her residency in the South Bronx and working with predominantly black female AIDS patients. It would be easy to haul a preconceived notion into...
View ArticleSpike Lee Goes to War
According to the standard hubbub that greets each new Spike Lee movie, the director makes controversies for a living instead of films. To be sure, Mr. Lee, one of the most fearless voices in...
View ArticleAn Unspeakable Act: 'Hounddog'
Known colloquially as "The Dakota Fanning Rape Movie" since its premiere at last year's Sundance Film Festival, Deborah Kampmeier's "Hounddog" arrives in theaters Friday after a long distribution...
View ArticleSan Sebastian Film Fest Opens
The San Sebastian Film Festival opened Thursday with a star-studded retinue including Woody Allen and Meryl Streep due to stroll the elegant promenades of the seaside city in Spain's northern Basque...
View ArticleVojtěch Jasný's Cinema of Freedom
In the 1970s, when the Czech filmmaker Vojtěch Jasný was struggling in exile from his Communist-run homeland, he came to the German writer Heinrich Böll for guidance. Böll offered a simple reminder:...
View ArticleBuying and Selling Justice in Rio: 'Elite Squad'
According to Captain Nascimento (Wagner Moura), the narrator and dramatic catalyst of José Padilha's fiction film debut "Elite Squad," on the mean streets of modern-day Rio de Janeiro, "the drug gangs...
View ArticleMovies in Brief: 'Fräulein'
"Fräulein," a new film about sisterhood, shared heritage, and maternal instincts uniting two expatriates who have little else in common, is the cinematic equivalent of a sweet and satisfying short...
View ArticleAlso Opening This Weekend
IGOR PG, 86 minutes John Cusack leads an all-star voice cast that includes Jay Leno, Molly Shannon, John Cleese, Steve Buscemi, and Jennifer Coolidge in this computer-animated comedy about a...
View ArticleThe Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful: 'The Duchess'
Barely more than a decade after that tragic dash through Paris and the unhinged, hysterical carnival of lamentation that followed, it is no great surprise that Princess Diana continues to cast a shadow...
View ArticlePassing Strange, Moving on to Life at IFC Center
It's been a while since we've had a bona fide documentary blockbuster. But as far as Thom Powers, a documentary programmer at Toronto International Film Festival and the organizer of the weekly...
View ArticleCantet Jumps to the Head of 'The Class'
People assign a lot of terms to the films of the French director Laurent Cantet, terms that typically point to the social themes of his stories or the naturalism of his methods. Mr. Cantet, who...
View ArticleSavannah Festival To Honor Malcolm McDowell
Malcolm McDowell, who starred in the 1971 film classic "A Clockwork Orange," will be honored with a lifetime achievement award at the 11th annual Savannah Film Festival. The festival, hosted by the...
View ArticleThe Melting Pot
This Friday, the curtain will rise on the 46th New York Film Festival with Laurent Cantet's award-winning classroom drama, "The Class." Sixteen days later, it will fall with the bloodsport climax of...
View ArticleSalvaging a Forgotten Director
A troubled movie production, parented by too many writers and directors, usually ends in catastrophe. So it is no small thing when a director swoops in to salvage a debacle, creating immediate profit...
View ArticleItalian Director Florestano Vancini Dies
Italian director Florestano Vancini, whose first film in 1960 won a Venice festival award, has died in Rome. He was 82. His native city of Ferrara said Tuesday on its Web site that Vancini died...
View ArticleA Director Creates 'Ballast' in His Soul
Had circumstances broken another way, Lance Hammer might not have spent the past five years creating "Ballast," which opens next week at Film Forum. The film, set against the desolate yet stirring...
View ArticleMoMA Snatches Two From the Art House
Two films from last year's New York Film Festival lineup are returning to the city this week for their theatrical engagements on the eve of the festival's latest edition. Béla Tarr's "The Man From...
View Article'Alexander Nevsky': Chopping Down the Grand Teutons
More than once in Sergei Eisenstein's "Alexander Nevsky," the titular 13th-century hero appears to stare down right into the audience as he delivers his solemn exhortations to the people. That's no...
View ArticleAlso Opening This Weekend
BOOGIE MAN: THE LEE ATWATER STORY Unrated, 86 minutes "Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story," which opens Friday at Cinema Village, is a comprehensive look at its titular subject, the blues guitar-playing...
View Article'Choke': Hard To Swallow
We keep waiting for "Choke" to up the ante, to elevate its crude antics into some kind of ethos. Instead, the story keeps asking us to search an emotional vacuum for hints of humanity that simply are...
View ArticleMovies in Brief: 'The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela'
Much as its subject a 20-something Filipino pre-op transsexual named Earvin who rechristens him/herself Raquela this curious film is never quite here or there. The Icelandic director Olaf de Fleur...
View ArticleNYFF Opens Albert Lewin's Magic Box
Though the likely audience favorite among the revivals in the 46th New York Film Festival will be the restored version of Max Ophuls's "Lola Montès," an equally glittering cinematic jewel is sure to...
View ArticleBarbet Schroeder Can't Be Killed
Even though his retrospective at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's BAMcinématek alludes to his "mad obsessions," Barbet Schroeder seems entirely measured and sensible. The affable and erudite Iranian...
View Article'The Lucky Ones': Nothing Salves the Soul Like a Road Trip
There are so many untold stories about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that the intentional implausibility of "The Lucky Ones" is truly cause for concern. Have we already given up on trying to...
View ArticleIf You Can't Punch Someone, Run Him Over
There's no crying in rugby. At least, that seems to be the mantra of stern, proud, and punchy coach Richard Penning (Neal McDonough). When he loses, he doesn't shake his opponents' hands. When his team...
View ArticleMovies in Brief: 'Wild Combination'
Anyone who mythologizes the glory days of East Village bohemia will watch Matt Wolf's "Wild Combination," which opens Friday at IFC Center, with a frog in his throat. Sympathetic enough to count as a...
View Article'Nights in Rodanthe': Contrived Hollywood Archetype Seeks Same
Nicolas Sparks is the Stephen King of the mush-brained romantic novel and, like the prolific schlockmeister of "Carrie," "Pet Sematary," and "The Stand," the author has found true love in Hollywood....
View ArticleA Spike in the War Chest
Spike Lee sometimes makes movies that are too provocative for critics to think straight. It's hard to imagine, say, his complex 2000 satire on race and the press, "Bamboozled," enjoying widespread...
View Article'Eagle Eye': Let It Go to Voicemail
If one is inclined to entertain the notion of hurling one's cell phone into traffic, immersing it in water, or doing whatever else it takes to make it stop delivering bad news, garbled messages, and...
View ArticleNew York Film Festival Goes Around the World and Back
The noncompetitive, keenly curated New York Film Festival, which begins its two-week run Friday, is neither a far-ranging marketplace nor a prelude to an awards night. Therefore, it's tempting to look...
View ArticleA British Artist Plumbs the Politics of Hunger
'Full-bodied cinema" is one way of describing "Hunger," the extraordinary debut feature by the British artist Steve McQueen that will screen this weekend at the New York Film Festival. Often grueling...
View ArticlePaul Newman, Actor, Succumbs to Cancer at 83
WESTPORT, Conn. Paul Newman, the Academy-Award winning superstar who personified cool as an activist, race car driver, popcorn impresario, and the anti-hero of such films as "Hud," "Cool Hand Luke"...
View ArticleSurveying a Week of Stories
Like the opening bell at a Triple Crown race, Laurent Cantet's "The Class" launched the New York Film Festival into a sprint on Friday evening, making way for two gala opening-night events and a...
View ArticleDown in the Delta, Hope Is a Stranger: 'Ballast'
In most movies involving a suicide, the act unites people beneath the umbrella of mourning and reconciliation. This is not the case in the universe envisioned by Lance Hammer in his stark, sensational...
View Article'Che': It's a Long Story
During last night's post-screening press conference for "Che," the two-part, 268-minute film based on the life of Ernesto "Che" Guevara that makes its debut at the New York Film Festival on October 7,...
View ArticleStripping Down the Comic With Alan Moore
Most writers are boring, and the less they're allowed to talk about what they do behind closed doors, the better. But some writers are verbal rock stars, able to tear off entrancing philosophical riffs...
View ArticleSecretariat Thunders Onto the Screen In a Magnificent Movie
One of the memorable moments in my newspaper life a span filled with wars, politics, and other dramas, high and low is the one that flashed by in the spring of 1973, when I found myself jammed up...
View ArticleHeroism of a King Captured on Film in the Movie of George VI
The Kings Speech is, as advertised, a riveting view, even for those who might have no special interest in the history so vividly described in this new film. King George VI always has been one of the...
View Article
