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About Nora Lee Mandel

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So far Nora Lee Mandel has created 319 blog entries.

    The Green Prince

    Written and Directed by Nadav Schirman, based on the memoir Son of Hamas by Mosab Hassan Yousef
    Produced by Schirman, John Battsek and Simon Chinn
    Released by Music Box Films
    Germany/Israel/UK. 101 min. Rated PG-13
    This summer’s front page photographs from Gaza of masked Hamas gunmen executing accused collaborators with Israel gives The Green Prince urgent immediacy. This […]

    By |September 8th, 2014|Documentary, Espionage, Middle East, Top Picks, War|0 Comments

      My Old Lady

      Written and Directed by Israel Horovitz, based on his play
      Produced by Rachael Horovitz and Gary Foster
      Released by Cohen Media Group
      USA/France. 104 min. Rated PG-13
      With Kevin Kline, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith, Dominique Pinon, Noémie Lvovsky and Stéphane De Groodt
      My Old Lady puts a sophisticated Parisian spin on the movie genre of forced, shared real estate […]

      By |September 1st, 2014|Comedy, Family drama, French|0 Comments

        Last Days in Vietnam

        Produced and Directed by Rory Kennedy
        Written by Mark Bailey and Keven McAlester
        Released by American Experience Films
        USA. 98 min. Not rated
        The first-person accounts in Last Days in Vietnam put the audience into a gripping you-are-there Saigon in April 1975, when the United States ingloriously exited from 20 years of involvement while the whole world was watching. […]

        By |September 1st, 2014|Documentary, War|0 Comments

          May in the Summer

          Written and Directed by Cherien Dabis
          Produced by Dabis, Alix Madigan-Yorkin and Christopher Tricarico
          Released by Cohen Media Group
          Jordan/Qatar/USA. 99 min. Rated R
          English and Arabic with English subtitles
          With Dabis, Alia Shawkat, Nadine Malouf, Ritu Singh Pande, Hiam Abbass, Alexander Siddig, Elie Mitri, and Bill Pullman
          May in the Summer centers on a refreshingly normal middle-class family coming home […]

          By |August 25th, 2014|Comedy, Family drama, Middle East|0 Comments

            Calvary

            Written and Directed by John Michael McDonagh
            Produced by Chris Clark, Flora Fernandez Marengo and James Flynn
            Released by Fox Searchlight Pictures
            Ireland/UK. 104 Min. Rated R
            With Brendan Gleeson, Chris O’Dowd, Kelly Reilly, Aidan Gillen, Dylan Moran, Isaach De Bankolé, M. Emmet Walsh, Marie-Josée Croze, Domhnall Gleeson, David Wilmot, Mícheál Óg Lane, Killian Scott, and Owen Sharpe

            Calvary […]

            By |August 15th, 2014|Crime, Ireland, Top Picks|0 Comments

              Tribeca Top Documentaries 2014

              This year, the Tribeca Film Festival gave awards to pointed portraits of political engagement. These documentaries raise thoughtful and tangled issues about how the very personal becomes political.

              Point and Shoot

              A shy OCD-beset young guy, Matt VanDyke, left his mother’s Baltimore basement and his girlfriend for a North African-to-Middle Eastern odyssey, and plunged into war zones […]

              By |August 3rd, 2014|Political, Post 9/11, Tribeca Film Festival|0 Comments

                Finding Fela

                Directed by Alex Gibney
                Produced by Gibney and Jack Gulick
                Released by Kino Lorber
                US/UK/Nigeria/France. 119 min. Not Rated
                Finding Fela started out as the making-of the Tony-winning Broadway show Fela!, before journeying with the American production’s tour to superstar Fela Kuti’s home base in Lagos, Nigeria. With the discovery of rare performance outtakes and archival footage, plus the […]

                By |July 31st, 2014|Arts, Documentary, Music, Top Picks|1 Comment

                  A Master Builder

                  Directed by Jonathan Demme
                  Produced by Rocco Caruso, André Gregory, and Wallace Shawn
                  Written by Shawn, based on Gregory’s production of Henrik Ibsen’s play Master Builder Solness
                  Released by Abramorama
                  USA. 127min. Not rated
                  With Wallace Shawn, Lisa Joyce, Julie Hagerty, André Gregory, Jeff Biehl, Emily Cass McDonnell, and Larry Pine

                  A Master Builder is an enthralling deflation of the archetypal […]

                  By |July 23rd, 2014|Drama, Top Picks|0 Comments

                    Tribeca Arts Documentaries 2014

                    The Power of Art: Real or Fake

                     

                    Documentaries on artists are an annual presence at the Tribeca Film Festival, but the breadth of art this year is exceptional.

                    Tomorrow We Disappear

                    By the time directors Jimmy Goldblum and Adam Weber finally got around to finishing Salman Rushdie’s 1981 novel Midnight’s Children (just before I did), they were surprised […]

                    By |July 20th, 2014|Arts, Documentary, Music, Tribeca Film Festival|0 Comments