Film/TV

671 results
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Riva (right) and Trintignant: Death as a reciprocal process.

Michael Haneke's 'Amour': Love and death

Facing the end

An elderly French couple faces mortality with courage and devotion in a game that can't be won but does reveal both the tragedy and the honor of the human condition. With Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant in restrained but almost unbearably poignant performances.
Robert Zaller

Robert Zaller

Articles 7 minute read
Win or lose, 'exterminate the vermin.'

Elem Klimov's "Come and See'

The greatest anti-war film (and also the least watchable)

Elem Klimov's searing account of the genocidal massacres by Nazi troops in Byelorussia in 1943 has been called the greatest anti-war film ever made. But Come and See is almost beyond critical categories. No one who does see it will ever forget it.
Robert Zaller

Robert Zaller

Articles 9 minute read
Williams, Linney, Murray: The delicate matter of a president's women.

"Hyde Park on Hudson' (2nd review)

The road to war, and the only adult in the room

King George's visit to Franklin D. Roosevelt on the eve of World War II is a subject worth exploring, but Roger Michell's Hyde Park on Hudson bites off more history and a little more drama than it can chew.
Robert Zaller

Robert Zaller

Articles 8 minute read
McDormand, Damon: Unspoiled paradise?

Gus Van Sant's "Promised Land'

Frack, baby, frack

Promised Land pits bad natural gas interests against the true grit of Pennsylvania townsfolk, and guess who wins— in Hollywood, I mean, not real life.
Robert Zaller

Robert Zaller

Articles 6 minute read
Paquin: The more needy, the more sexualized.

Real life: Kenneth Lonergan's 'Margaret'

The unpredictable messiness of real life

Contrary to what you see in most movies and plays, “happy endings” last at best for a few days, and more likely a few hours. Kenneth Lonergan's haunting Margaret is that rare film that captures reality with gripping accuracy— if you can find it.
SaraKay Smullens

SaraKay Smullens

Articles 4 minute read

Sacha Gervasi's "Hitchcock'

The voyeur gets the keyhole treatment

Sacha Gervasi's Hitchcock depicts the making of Alfred Hitchcock's best-known (if not actually best) film, Psycho, and uses it as a vehicle to peer into the director's complex marriage. Gervasi's attempt to get behind Hitchcock's own carefully crafted persona is less successful, but co-stars Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren offer a master class in screen acting.
Robert Zaller

Robert Zaller

Articles 10 minute read
Filming 'Barry Lyndon' in 1975: Impose nothing, demand everythng.

How good was Stanley Kubrick?

The ultimate 20th Century director: What made Stanley run?

Stanley Kubrick's films lacked a characteristic look; on the contrary, he seemed determined to explore every conceivable film genre. He may have been a genius, but precisely how?
Robert Zaller

Robert Zaller

Articles 10 minute read
Freeman and his best friend: What can swords do that dwarfs can't?

Gun control lessons from "The Hobbit'

Can swords kill people? Oh my yes (and all by themselves, too)

When the characters in The Hobbit aren't waging battle against the masses of Mordor, they're delivering worshipful paeans to weaponry. But if you stick with this film to the bitter end, you'll discover that the rallying cry of the National Rifle Association wouldn't fly in Middle Earth.
Alaina Johns

Alaina Johns

Articles 4 minute read
Deservedly or not, the 'Man of the Monkey' became an object of veneration.

Artistic freedom and Brazil's "Man of the Monkey'

The artist, the fascists and the jungle: A Brazilian mystery

On a Brazilian jungle island that housed a prison for political dissidents, inhabitants told tales of a shadowy "Man of the Monkey" who possessed multiple talents and exercised awesome powers. Was he real, or a figment of superstition? Under a government bent on driving its subjects crazy, who could say for sure?
Caroline Dunlop Millett

Caroline Dunlop Millett

Articles 4 minute read
Murray: Who's that in the front seat with FDR?

"Hyde Park on Hudson' (1st review)

Hands across the cartoon sea

It's role reversal time, as Britain's king and queen visit President Franklin D. Roosevelt, crowns in hand, to beg for his military support. Only in a Hollywood film would FDR's paramour wind up stealing the show.
David Woods

David Woods

Articles 2 minute read