GOLDA does not take the traditional route in telling the story of the Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. Instead, it focuses on the defining moment of her political career, a moment that made her, in the closing coda to the film, a hero abroad and controversial in her own country. It is a portrait etched… Read More »
KANDAHAR
KANDAHAR has the virtue of being more than a quotidian action tale of espionage and its attendant machinations. By taking a brooding rather than kinetic approach, it becomes a bittersweet meditation on, as one character sums up very neatly, the idea that modern wars are not meant to be won. The implications of that provide… Read More »
MAYOR PETE — Jesse Moss Interview
Jesse Moss was in the process of editing his startling and illuminating documentary, BOYS STATE, when he was offered the chance to follow a longshot candidate in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries. He wasn’t that interested, then he watched that candidate, Pete Buttigieg, in a primary town hall and changed his mind. As the… Read More »
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
It’s possible that a working knowledge of Canadian culture and politics might annotate the sheer joy of watching Matthew Rankin’s THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, but a lack of same in no way diminishes it. This rapturously surreal romp through fascism, propaganda, and the perils of love delights in its arch embrace of retro-futuristic artifice and vintage… Read More »
BOYS STATE
As some of us still ponder the results of the presidential election of 2016, and view the approach of the 2020 election with trepidation, there is no more timely nor illuminating film than Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss’ cinema verité documentary, BOY’S STATE.
THE FRONT RUNNER
a thoughtful, anarchically lively, film about the obligations of the candidate and the responsibilities of the press that force us to question both
THE OATH — Ike Barinholtz Interview
Click here to listen to the interview. he family Thanksgiving dinner can be a tricky time as many, and not necessarily, compatible personalities and opinions converge over a table groaning with too much food. In the current, and fraught, political climate, that is even more true. Ike Barniholtz, writer/director/co-star of THE OATH, took that idea… Read More »
THE INSULT — Ziad Douieri Interview
Click here to listen to the interview. Ziad Doueiri made one of my favorite films of the 2010s, THE ATTACK (2011), about an apolitical Arab doctor in Israel who finds himself suddenly the object of suspicion by his friends and colleagues when his wife becomes a suicide bomber. His new film, THE INSULT, the… Read More »
THE LAST DALAI LAMA? — Mickey Lemle Interview
Mickey Lemle made his first documentary about the Dalai Lama in 1991. Entitled COMPASSION IN EXILE, it recounted his discovery as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, his training since childhood to be the spiritual leader of Tibet, and the consequences for him and his country of the Chinese invasion of Tibet, and his… Read More »
MEN WITH GUNS
Is ignorance a sin? John Sayles ponders that in MEN WITH GUNS.
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