The opening shot of a dead child about to be buried as his parents mourn graveside sets the tone for this efficient and at times absorbing retelling of Shakespeare’s violent tragedy. The few and infrequent bits of the play’s comic relief have been excised for one uniform, despairing depiction of warrior Macbeth’s murderous ascent to […]
There’s no intelligible dialogue in this animated odyssey about a nameless boy who leaves his home in the countryside in search of his father, but it still manages to speak to the heart. The father has left for the city to find work, and his lonely son undertakes a dreamlike pursuit. Growing in sinister stature […]
Just the facts, ma’am. That catchphrase from the old Dragnet TV series well describes director Tom McCarthy’s efficient, workmanlike approach to his beat-by-beat unmasking of a scandal. In 2002, the Boston Globe published an exhaustively researched exposé of how the city’s Roman Catholic diocese shielded hundreds of sexual abusers among its ranks for decades. This […]
It was once believed that birds were messengers whose flight and song could be interpreted to foretell the future, but over time, as the world became increasingly industrialized, we lost the connection we once shared with their world. Through her documentary, director Su Rynard hopes to call our attention, once again, to what the songbirds […]
Imagine you have a young friend from conservative rural Turkey. Funny that, because her modishly off-kilter beauty looks more like what you’d see in a Paris modeling studio. Your friend is flirty and flighty, but she conceals something that you’d never mess with: stone courage and a will of fine metal. Does she tell fibs? […]
The Dominican Republic’s Oscar submission for best foreign language film is an intriguing and somber look at life on the island. Set against the beautiful Caribbean backdrop, Sand Dollars explores love and money and sex tourism, while juxtaposing those who choose to take holidays on these sandy shores and those who call the island home, […]
Set amid the stark beauty of the Jordanian Desert, director Naji Abu Nowar’s noteworthy debut film is a coming-of-age story steeped in Bedouin culture and the events of 1916. World War I is raging, and the Ottoman Empire is in a state of upheaval. Arab factions wage a revolution, and Great Britain defends its rights […]
As I took my seat to watch Brooklyn at the New York Film Festival, the middle-aged man to my left flashed me a dirty look. Clearly the gentleman did not want company next to him, and so he made sure to throw me the kind of pitch-black shade that lets you know you’ve invaded a […]
It’s the same every damn time, isn’t it? Reports of a mass shooting roll in on the TV. Ashen-face police chiefs announce a death toll. Victims and survivors weep. Arguments flare about guns. And then it happens again. And again. How will the circle be unbroken? The documentary The Armor of Light shows how two […]