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 […]
It’s hard to imagine a more fascinating place on earth than Chile. If we had to pick one country to show an alien race what varying geographical features our planet has to offer, it would probably be that country. It has more than 4,000 kilometers of coastline and the highest volcano and part of the […]
Even if you’ve read Emma Donoghue’s 2010 novel Room or already heard about this film adaptation, there is little chance that too much foreknowledge will lessen the story’s complexity. At the recent Toronto International Film Festival, it was perhaps the most talked about selection; I couldn’t cover my ears in time before I found out […]
This masterful balancing act of docudrama and morality tragedy is set in 2010, but we aren’t given that date until more than halfway through. It doesn’t matter, as the events of the film—taking place in Orlando, Florida—could be taking place right now. This goes to show how in the moment and forceful Ramin Bahrani’s fifth […]
(The writer of this review in no way intends to injure relations between the Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.) In recent years, natural disasters, violent atrocities, and political turmoil have been wrestling for headlines and the public’s attention. Any one instance of bad news becomes painfully easy to forget in a world of trending stories scrolled […]