“It’s not about comparing scars,” says Rabbi Capers Funnye, his thought completed moments later by Dr. Michael Berenbaum’s, “It doesn’t mean the Holocaust doesn’t have something to say about slavery and slavery doesn’t have something to say about the Holocaust. Both of them have something to say about suffering.” You …
Much of filmmaker Michael Reich’s glaucomatous experimentation can be traced back to its shot-on-VHS origins. The closest disenthralled video artist Mike Pinkney (as himself) has come to Tinseltown prominence is the iconic Hollywood sign that looks down upon the dog washing emporium where his job is to groom and express …
If homesick college freshman Alex (Cooper Raiff) spent as much time looking for companionship as he did telephonically complaining to his mom and sis about the lack thereof (or telepathically seeking comfort and advice from a plush dog), he’d be the most popular boy on campus. Jonesing for Maggie (Dylan …
Shadows of passing cars sweep across the bedroom ceilings as both mother and daughter greet the dawn with apprehension. Clota (Rita Cortese) hates to travel, and daughter Stella (Valeria Lois) dreads being her traveling companion, particularly when the journey isn’t a holiday. Together, they’ll take the 30-plus hour bus ride …
Writer-director Daphne Charizani’s moving, originally told tale of women placed worlds apart (but still closely bound) in times of war opens in a Kurdish refugee camp in Greece. Rojda (Almila Bagriacik) arrives hoping to find both her mother Ferhat (Maryam Boubani) and sister Dilan (Gonca de Haas) signed, sealed, and …
If ever there were a film in which nakedness was essential to the plot, it’s this. In the truest sense of the term, pre-code films ceased to exist when the production code was first submitted to studios in 1929. But critic Mick LaSalle rightfully points out the era in Hollywood’s …
A vignette-heavy, character-driven thriller consumed by chatty types who, even as their adventitiously spun stories race to conclude, tempt us to question the veracity behind their rat-a-tat-ramblings. Of all the characters that couchsurfing actress Stephanie (Stephanie Hayes) encounters during the scant 72-minute running time, Gerard (Scott Shepherd) leaps out. His …
The Villages in Florida, America’s largest retirement community, is the setting for Lance Oppenheim’s first feature-length documentary. Tucked a safe distance away from the woebegone slums of nearby Orlando, it’s an age-restricted elephant’s graveyard: “God’s waiting room,” where comfortable retirees flock to its antiseptic subdivisions with the same kind of …
Jim Carrey picks up a check playing second banana to a small, blue, animated speedball.
The accidental and premature death of Joe (voiced by Jamie Foxx) on the biggest day of his life lands him in limbo, where he’s compelled to plead his case at a corporate, other-worldly way station. Sound familiar? It’s the premise for Albert Brooks’ fantasy comedy Defending Your Life. In this …
The accidental and premature death of Joe (voiced by Jamie Foxx) on the biggest day of his life lands him in limbo, where he’s compelled to plead his case at a corporate, other-worldly way station. Sound familiar? It’s the premise for Albert Brooks’ fantasy comedy Defending Your Life. In this …
Does anyone remember It’s All Gone Pete Tong, Michael Dowse’s hilariously uplifting tale of real-life club DJ Frankie Wilde’s struggle against progressive hearing loss? The Academy didn’t, and perhaps it’s better that way, seeing how the staid voting members never have taken a shine to tragicomedy. Ruben (Riz Ahmed), a …
Last week, readers were introduced to the term “dansical,” a musical without singing. With its liberating lack of dependence on traditional song and dance routines and a script fashioned out of twenty or so poems, Summertime earns a category all its own: the slam poetrysical. First impression: 18 poems in …