Film Reviews
A new film version of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (and Sean Baker’s Starlet)
By Joanne Laurier, December 22, 2012
British filmmaker Joe Wright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard have collaborated on a new film adaptation of Tolstoy’s classic novel. Starlet tells the story of a relationship between two women in California’s San Fernando Valley.
Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty: Hollywood embraces the “dark side”
By Bill Van Auken, December 20, 2012
Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty brings to film-making what “embedded” reporting did for journalism—an uncritical embrace of and identification with the military-intelligence complex and its crimes.
The Life of Pi: In a lifeboat alone with a tiger
By David Walsh, December 15, 2012
The new film directed by Taiwanese-born Ang Lee is based on a 2001 novel—winner of the Booker Prize—by Canadian author Yann Martel.
The Central Park Five: A story of injustice
By Joanne Laurier, December 12, 2012
Directed and produced by renowned documentarian Ken Burns, daughter Sarah Burns and her husband David McMahon, The Central Park Five chronicles an infamous case in 1989.
Dangerous Remedy: Bertram Wainer and the struggle for abortion rights
By Richard Phillips, December 3, 2012
New Australian telemovie falsely marketed as crime drama.
Silver Linings Playbook: It’s the little things in life …
By Joanne Laurier, November 29, 2012
In this comedy-drama, former substitute history teacher Pat has just been released from a psychiatric facility when he meets Tiffany, the widow of a policeman. Together they struggle to overcome their difficulties.
The Man with the Iron Fists: Reactionary Kung-Fu
By Kevin Kearney, November 26, 2012
The film, directed by rapper-music producer RZA, follows a collection of warriors in mythical 19th century China who band together to defeat a common enemy.
The Law in These Parts: Israeli military justice in the Occupied Territories
By Kevin Kearney, November 21, 2012
Ra’anan Alexandrowicz’s documentary is a penetrating look at the Israeli military legal system in the Occupied Territories on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip over the last 45 years.
Artifact: A musician’s struggle against a giant corporation
By Robert Fowler, November 19, 2012
Artifact details the legal battle between Jared Leto and his band, Thirty Seconds to Mars, and EMI, the recording industry giant.
A comment and an interview with filmmaker Minda Martin
Free Land: American dreams and realities
By Joanne Laurier, November 15, 2012
Minda Martin’s 2010 film Free Land, at the same time a documentary-essay and personal memoir, poetically and evocatively connects a variety of social and personal events.
Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and the historical drama of the Civil War
By Tom Mackaman, November 12, 2012
Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln is a powerful cinematic treatment of the Lincoln administration’s struggle to pass a Constitutional amendment abolishing slavery in 1865, the final year of the American Civil War.
Flight: A pilot saves the day, but not himself
By David Walsh, November 10, 2012
In Flight Denzel Washington plays Whip Whitaker, a highly skilled pilot with a serious drinking and drug problem, who becomes a hero when he averts a plane crash. However …
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