Film

The Pianist Roman Polanski’s The Pianist approaches the Holocaust by telling a personal story of despair and ultimately triumph against the broad canvas of World War II. Polanski and writer Ronald Harwood put a face on this massive tragedy by focusing on Wladyslaw Szpilman, a renowned Polish-Jewish pianist, passionately portrayed by Adrien Brody. Though tragedy […]

Cradle 2 the Grave If anyone can build an acting career on a glower, it’s DMX. The vowel-deficient rapper started his film career in the underrated Belly and then moved on to Romeo Must Die and Exit Wounds. He sports a steely, narrow glare and tightly drawn mouth whether shooting bad guys, cracking wise, or […]

In the early 90s documentary filmmaker Stephanie Black had been vacationing in Jamaica for several years, but every time she stepped off the plane she felt mired in a deepening quandary. She was an American, but the presence of Americans–and their dollars–seemed to be changing the very character of the country. With every return trip, […]

Phone Booth Who would have guessed that Joel Schumacher–the director of bloated, empty movies such as Batman and Robin and the Anthony Hopkins-Chris Rock spy turkey Bad Company–would be capable of delivering a riveting film that depends on economic, narrative filmmaking. He does just that with the taut thriller Phone Booth, a tight 81-minute claustrophobic […]

Long before it opened nationwide in the United States, The Quiet American premiered in Vietnam to great fanfare. I saw it in Saigon last December, when the Vietnamese government literally rolled out the red carpet for director Phillip Noyce, actor Brendan Fraser, and the press. The reason? As one of the Vietnamese representatives put it […]

Willard While sitting through Glen Morgan’s update of the cult horror film Willard, I couldn’t help but wonder whether there must be other practical purposes for being able to communicate with rats than having them tear your boss to shreds. They could put those German Shepherds to shame searching out earthquake victims. Or say you’ve […]

View From the Top That Donna Jensen (Gwyneth Paltrow), you’ve got to admit, she sure knows how to aim high. She longs to see the world and thinks that the only way to do it is to become a stewardess. Of course, anything would be an improvement after growing up in a trailer in Arizona […]

Strange things happen in this world, and the fact that the film Kandahar, by the Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, found a substantial international audience after it was released in late 2001 is a small but genuinely strange byproduct of recent history. A few years ago Kandahar would have been a footnote on the movie-release calendar, […]