During a press day, it’s usually the publicist who gives the signal that time is up. In the case of Bennett Miller, though, he was concerned that the opening and closing of the door would interfere with the sound I was recording. That’s why he set a timer on his phone, and why at the… Read More »
Jon Stewart and Maziar Bahari – Rosewater
As God is my witness, I thought that Jon Stewart knew that Aryan had more than one definition. He didn’t, but it made for a lively way to start my conversation with both him and Maziar Bahari on October 22, 2014. As Bahari pointed out, Iranians are the original Aryans, and he went on to… Read More »
THE CHANGELING
THE CHANGELING, directed and produced by Clint Eastwood, is based on a true story so Kafka-esque that it staggers the imagination. In March of 1928, Christine Collins came home from work to discover her nine-year-old son, Walter, was missing. Her call to the Los Angeles police for help was rebuffed because the boy hadn’t been… Read More »
JULIE & JULIA
If Julia Child had not chosen the right moment to powder her nose at an embassy party in Paris, she might never have met Simone Beck, and there might never have been the classic cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. If Julie Powell, at the end of a particularly trying day as a government… Read More »
PIRATE RADIO
What PIRATE RADIO does that is so remarkable is to capture as closely as a film can what it was like to be a fan of rock & roll at a time when it was considered not just noise, but actual subversion. Of course, in a way it was. This music was the anthem of… Read More »
THE BLIND SIDE
THE BLIND SIDE takes what in lesser hands would have been a prime example of the hopelessly hackneyed and saccharine sub-genre of holiday feel-good flick, sports division, and, instead, makes of this uplifting true story a refreshingly sober film that brings good and surprisingly wholesome good cheer. The true story is of how Michael Oher… Read More »
MAX
As an exercise in ethics, people have been known to ponder the morality of going back in time to kill Hitler before he rose to power and committed any crimes against humanity. Some though, to adhere to the polar opposite sort of principles that Hitler espoused, thought a much more effective way to stop him… Read More »
PARTY MONSTER
For some people, reality is a choice and they would rather not. Why be an office drone when you can be a star, even if it’s only for a night and in a dress made of toilet paper? This was the thinking behind the Club Kids scene and the backdrop for one of New York’s… Read More »
MONSTER
Patty Jenkins’ film, MONSTER, is brilliant, breathtaking, and completely unforgettable. Those are words that are sorely overused in the land of crit-speak, and yet there are few films that are so very deserving of them. Jenkins biographical story of Aileen Wournos, convicted serial killer, has all the earmarks of a tabloid tale from one of… Read More »
AGAINST THE ROPES
The story of how Jackie Kallen made it as a manager in the testosterone-driven boxing game is a saga worthy of the sort of treatment accorded NORMA RAE or even Erin Brockovitch. Alas, AGAINST THE ROPES does not measure up to either of those films, though leading lady Meg Ryan as Kallen does turn in… Read More »
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