Radical nostalgia for a time when anti-war sentiment was working itself up to “the Second American Revolution.” (A long way from the current sentiment against the war in Iraq.) The Democratic National Convention of 1968 and the subsequent trial of Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, Bobby Seale, et al., …
Chuck Wepner first became a semi-household name as the white guy given a title shot at Muhammad Ali. That was followed by well-publicized bouts with Andre the Giant, Sylvester Stallone, a wrestling bear, and a coke habit. In each case, Chuck’s ticket to fame was his willingness to play the …
A pleasant outing in a Buick station wagon, comfortably seating five: Mom, Dad, Sis and her boyfriend, and the suspicious wife who, on the day after Thanksgiving, has discovered a cryptic note to her husband, quoting an Andrew Marvell love poem and signed "Sandy." What is the meaning of this? …
Workmanlike account of the untold (or anyhow unfilmed) true story of a 20th-century Moses and his two brothers, who sheltered hundreds of Jews from the Nazis in the forests of Belorussia, such dark days that color itself evidently went into hiding, leaving behind only a greeny or occasionally orangey residue. …
The daily goings-on of an upper middle class family are presented for your watercooler enjoyment. Liev Schreiber and Helen Hunt, facing marital ennui, must deal with the latter’s ailing father. Brian Dennehy is credible in the part, cursing out his doldrums with an end-of-the-line kind of resignation. Photographed in a …
A road film in a sparse landscape, an adaptation of a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. It follows the quest -- the "very rigid search," in the uncertain English of the Ukrainian guide and translator -- for the peasant woman who in WWII saved the life of the late grandfather …
During the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir must navigate overwhelming odds, a skeptical cabinet, and a complex relationship with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as millions of lives hang in the balance. Directed by Guy Nattiv, starring Camille Cottin, Helen Mirren, and Liev Schreiber.
During the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir must navigate overwhelming odds, a skeptical cabinet, and a complex relationship with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as millions of lives hang in the balance. Directed by Guy Nattiv, starring Camille Cottin, Helen Mirren, and Liev Schreiber.
After a reign of three brief years, Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet is overthrown as the worst Hamlet in screen history. It was no problem to modernize the setting by moving the action to the Hotel Elsinore, New York headquarters of the multinational Denmark Corporation; but we are still stuck, even in …
Special pleading on behalf of the one-time prizefighter, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, railroaded into jail by a Javert-like Philadelphia cop. The presentation is so lopsided that it arouses more mistrust than outrage. And the curious Toronto household (two men, one woman, and a black foster child from Brooklyn), credited with effectuating …
Give Robin Williams credit for the courage (or the folly) of his convictions. He has already secured an Oscar (Best Supporting Actor for Good Will Hunting), yet he persists in throwing himself into tubs of humanist mush, doing his smile-turned-upside-down number, begging to be taken seriously. This one -- a …
Time-travel romance (or in the words of the whiz-kid Cupid who makes it happen, "a 4-D pretzel of kismetic inevitability") uniting a Type-A Manhattan career woman and a 19th-century British duke, who tumbles through a time-portal into the present day. The matching of Meg Ryan -- tossing around and peering …
Remember that one scene in Prometheus where the two dudes turned into space zombie things? Don't you wish there was a whole movie about that one scene? Well, too bad, you're getting one anyway. With Liev Schreiber, a fine actor who just ain't care about his cinematic legacy.
Jonathan Demme's ill-advised remake. The main point to be made about the 1962 original is that, with its historical co-ordinates of McCarthyism, the Cold War, and the Yellow Peril, it dates rather badly, and thus cries out for a major overhaul. But while the John Frankenheimer version — positing a …
The full title is Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today (the Schulberg/Waletzky Restoration). The official film of the postwar Nuremberg war-crimes trial, which was released in Germany but not in America, is a captivating testament starring one of the supreme rogues’ galleries. Suave Albert Speer, odious Hans Frank, morosely bored Hermann …