John Madden's "The Debt' (2nd review)

Truth, lies, cinema: An Israeli paradox

In John Madden's The Debt, an Israeli commando team decides to fudge the botched kidnapping of a notorious Nazi war criminal as a killing. “What price truth?” is the question posed. But, beneath the surface of an action thriller lurk even darker and more existential issues.

Robert Zaller

Sep 13, 2011 · Articles · 7 minute read

"What Alice Knew': The hunt for Jack the Ripper

Sex and the 19th-Century city

The James siblings— Henry, William, Alice— pursue Jack the Ripper through late Victorian London in a witty intellectual thriller that offers some uncomfortable truths about sex, violence and the city along the way. What Alice Knew: A Most Curious Tale of Henry James and Jack the Ripper. By Paula Marantz Cohen. Sourcebooks, 2010. 341 pages; paperback, $14.95. www.amazon.com.

Robert Zaller

Sep 10, 2011 · Articles · 5 minute read

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