Dorothy Parker beneath the surface

All that wit, all that pain

The more I blabbed about Dorothy Parker's wit, the more I realized that I knew very little about her life before and after the Algonquin Round Table. Was I ever in for some biographical surprises.

Patrick D. Hazard

Sep 10, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read

"The Help' and "The Debt': Jessica Chastain's moment

Great teeth, great hair, and, well, you know the rest

Jessica Chastain has miles to go to match the force of Helen Mirren's mature persona. Until then, here's an actress beginning to stretch herself in two good movies aimed at very different audiences. The Help. A film written and directed by Tate Taylor, from the novel by Kathryn Stockett. For Philadelphia area showtimes, click here.

Reed Stevens

Sep 10, 2011 · Articles · 5 minute read

Rowan Joffé's remake of "Brighton Rock'

Catholics without Catholicism

Graham Greene's chilling 1938 novel, Brighton Rock, hinges on the passionate Catholicism of a cruelly violent teen gangster and his easily manipulated girlfriend. Without that powerful religious underpinning, the new film adaptation doesn't make much sense.

Jake Blumgart

Sep 10, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read

"The Help': Racism, or just plain meanness? (1st review)

Sugarcoated segregation

Does The Help resurrect shameful stereotypes or provide worthy human and historical perspective in its portrayal of black maids in 1960s Mississippi? Tate Taylor makes it too easy to detach ourselves from the real problem.

Alaina Johns

Sep 03, 2011 · Articles · 5 minute read

David Goldblatt's history of soccer

How soccer conquered the world (except for one pesky nation)

How did we arrive at a world in which half of mankind watches the World Cup final? And most Americans wonder why they bother?

Tom Purdom

Aug 28, 2011 · Articles · 5 minute read

Michael McDonagh's "The Guard'

Law and order in western Ireland

The Guard pumps new comic life into a worn-out genre: the buddy cop flick. Not the least of its joys is Brendan Gleeson's turn as a shambling, shabby, happily corrupted bear of an Irish policeman who seems blissfully devoid of the Freudian hang-ups that plague most movie rogue cops.

Jake Blumgart

Aug 16, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read

Kate Atkinson: crime fiction for grownups

Our lady of life's existential mysteries

Kate Atkinson— a former literary novelist and playwright— isn't your ordinary mystery writer. She bends expectations, breaks conventions, plays with time and constructs grisly crimes that aren't always neatly solved. She astutely perceives that our fates aren't as easily foretold as tomorrow's weather.

Bob Levin

Aug 14, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read

Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris'

Name-dropping at midnight: Woody Allen explores the past (again)

What's so romantic about Paris? Don't look for answers in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. What Gertrude Stein said about Oakland also holds true for Woody Allen's lost Paris of the 1920s: There's no there there.

Dan Rottenberg

Jul 11, 2011 · Articles · 6 minute read

Malick's "The Tree of Life'

Adam without Eve: Terrence Malick returns to Eden

The Tree of Life, though flawed and at times exasperating, is Terrence Malick's most beautiful and humanly realized film since Days of Heaven, and a work that will be studied for many years to come. But it shows too the limits of a filmmaker whose vision, though deeply and rewardingly poetic, is stuck in adolescence and the rituals of male bonding and conflict.

Robert Zaller

Jun 28, 2011 · Articles · 9 minute read

Redford's "The Conspirator'

Who killed Abraham Lincoln?

Robert Redford's The Conspirator focuses on the trial of Mary Surratt for conspiracy in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Its real focus, though, is the contemporary War on Terror, and the question that perennially divides us— whether we are to be a society of laws or of men.

Robert Zaller

May 17, 2011 · Articles · 6 minute read