For personal reasons, I wasn’t able to see as many films at this year’s festival as I was last year. I didn’t go to the glamor events, so I’m only going to write about the films. I saw five features from the main slate at Alice Tully Hall, a perfect venue for it. Although four […]
As far as cynical satires about war profiteers go, War Dogs, directed by Todd Phillips from a script by Jason Smilovic, Stephen Chin and Phillips, is one of the better ones. The story itself, based on a Rolling Stone article by Guy Lawson, is about two young Miami hotshots who fumble their way into getting […]
It’s been a while since I wrote about something other than film, but this novel presented a unique challenge. In fact, it is hard to imagine a reader who would not feel forced to examine their deepest feelings about its subject. (By the way, Paul Schrader made a film of the book in 1997, which […]
Sometimes filmmakers see possibilities in the life of some obscure historical figure, betting that audiences will find reward in their stories. But it’s hard to see why anyone would be interested in Florence Foster Jenkins. A rich heiress, and classical music patroness, she gained national attention during World War II when she gave a vocal […]
Cartoon satire, especially as a feature film, is risky. Audiences expect cartoons to be family-friendly, and there are few cartoon feature films that appealed to adult moviegoers looking for sharp, funny, downright dirty entertainment. But it’s happened, and the filmmakers were admired for the risks they took. Ralph Bakshi’s Fritz The Cat was just such […]
The “early bird” deadline for the 7th Annual Queens World Film Festival is on August 29, 2016. If you want your film to be considered for this prestigious festival, you should be preparing your submission now. Either Without a Box or Film Freeway can be used. Katha and Don Cato will again be directing the […]
This cogent, powerful film of a Phillip Roth novel, which had its world premiere at Sundance, serves the writer particularly well. Its protagonist, Marcus, is an 18-year old Jewish boy in 1951 America, and he is as opinionated, self-righteous and resentful as the other Roth heroes I can remember – which is why they’ve always […]
One thing is pretty clear in The Infiltrator: bankers are boring. Directed by Brad Furman, from a screenplay by Ellen Brown Furman, it is based on a true story. Bryan Cranston plays Robert Mazur, an undercover federal agent with financial expertise. Mazur is set up as a businessman seeking to launder the Columbian drug profits […]
Nicolas Winding Refn’s Neon Demon follows a well-worn path to its bloody conclusion, relying on an audience’s tolerance for empty female characters in order to see them murder each other as a career move. In this case, they are gorgeous models seething with jealousy over Elle Fanning’s sudden dominance of the fashion scene in Los […]
Johnnie To likes to keep it simple. It’s about a cop, a criminal and a doctor: three. Each lives by a code of conduct, and the film depicts how each member tries, imperfectly, to live by his/her code when forced to relate to someone who lives by different rules. Dr. Tong, a woman, is a brain […]
