There’s No Other Best Picture Contender Quite Like Todd Haynes’ “Carol”
DECEMBER 14, 2015 Todd Haynes’ new film “Carol” has had two very good weeks on the awards front. On December 2, the film received four awards from the prestigious…
Art House Review
Reviews of independent cinema
A Musical Comedy in Rhyming Verse? You’ve Never Seen a Movie Quite Like Spike Lee’s “Chi-Raq”
DECEMBER 11, 2015 On Thursday, hundreds of protesters filled the streets of Chicago demanding the resignation of Mayor Rahm Emmanuel. The protests center on the police killing of a…
Dame Maggie Smith Channels Her Inner Bag Lady in Alan Bennett’s “The Lady in the Van”
DECEMBER 8, 2015 It’s heresy, I know. But I didn’t like Maggie Smith in “The Lady in the Van.” To be clearer, I didn’t like how her character, a…
Why “Brooklyn” Speaks To the Romantic Side of All of Us
DECEMBER 7, 2015 I was at an event the other night, and at the table, the subject turned to current movies. We were arguing the merits of “Carol” or…
Carey Mulligan in “Suffragette”: Earnest, Heartfelt and Kinda Boring
NOVEMBER 12, 2015 I have a crush on Carey Mulligan. There, I’ve said it. The British actress has displayed, both on stage and in films, the kind of charm,…
Cate Blanchett Is the Only Reason To See the Superficial “Truth”
NOVEMBER 6, 2015 Let’s time-travel back to 2004. On September 8 of that year, two months before the Presidential election, “60 Minutes Wednesday,” anchored by Dan Rather and produced…
Netflix Tries To Crash the Oscar Race With the Brutal and Haunting “Beasts of No Nation”
OCTOBER 22, 2015 Netflix’s new theatrical release “Beasts of No Nation” is a game-changer — not necessarily in the content or execution of the film itself, but in how…
The Nobel Peace Prize-Winner Deserves a Better Documentary Than “He Named Me Malala”
OCTOBER 15, 2015 There’s a legend of an Afghani hero in 1880 named Malala. In the Battle of Maiwand against the English invaders, the Afghanis began to lose heart…
Still Luminous, Gong Li Is Reunited with Director Zhang Yimou in the Heartbreaking “Coming Home”
OCTOBER 13, 2015 Melodrama has become quite a dirty word in film criticism circles. If a film is “melodramatic,” that usually translates into “wrenching tears for the cheapest possible…
“Stonewall” — It Breaks My Heart To Say It, But It’s Just Awful
OCTOBER 2, 2015 I hate to kick a man when he’s down, and director Roland Emmerich is really down. Perhaps the most financially successful gay director ever, Emmerich has helmed…
