The woods: few phrases conjure up scares so visceral. This portrait of a Puritan family confronted with witchcraft is ultimately about our most fundamental fears: the dark, the unknown, and, of course, one another. Believing that their settlement’s way of practicing their faith is too liberal, a family of six—husband William, wife Katherine, eldest daughter […]
Peter Matthiessen’s 1978 novel The Snow Leopard recounts his journey through the Himalayas with a team of Sherpas as guides. Among them was Tukten, for whom Matthiessen felt a particular reverence, often referring to him as a “shaman” for an unnamable, soulful quality, despite a tendency toward unreliability and pesky behavior. Tukten teaches one of […]
Before I settled down in my seat to watch the new horror/comedy Nina Forever, my friend and I were discussing a particular film that I liked and he didn’t. He did admire its audacity, though. He said it was a film you had to go “all in for.” Fortuitously, Nina Forever is an absolutely “all […]
The opening credits spell it out: 800,000 sheep among 320,000 Icelanders. Living in the remote northern part of the country, two brothers, bachelor sheep farmers past middle age, live alone on side by side farms. Their family has lived in the region for generations, raising prized thoroughbred stock. Both brothers have an attentive, paternal relationship with their herds—their constant companions—yet the men haven’t said a word to each other […]
Filmed over four years, the new documentary Requiem for the American Dream is the final, definitive long-form presentation of Noam Chomsky’s ideas on the interplay of power, capitalism, and democracy. Chomsky, arguably the foremost public intellectual of modern times, has been critiquing power and promoting democracy and solidarity for more than five decades in countless […]
“Kiss the hand you cannot bite.” Cynical and bitter, this helpful hint happens to be the title of a book about Romania’s late, hated dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu. But it’s also a key to understanding Romania itself. Authoritarianism and its craven twin, flattery, richly water the country’s roots. First, a feudal satrapy held Roma slaves for […]
Horribly, terrorism and assassinations seem more common now than when Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was gunned down while he was leaving a peace rally in Tel Aviv on November 4, 1995. Writer/director Amos Gitai’s frighteningly relevant and insightful re-creation of the days leading up to that murder is a sophisticated analysis of the ways […]
After decades of documentaries criticizing the puzzlements of the American way of life—opposition to gun control despite a decades-long mass murder crisis (Bowling for Columbine), abiding lust for capitalism despite catastrophic results for the vast majority (Capitalism: A Love Story), opposing free public healthcare as a basic right comparable to free public education (Sicko)—Michael Moore […]
With a robust showing of documentaries and foreign and American-made films in 2015, there are more than enough to choose from for a top 10 list. The options make for a more spirited end-of-the-year discussion than usual and are also why so many of the awards and nominations that have been announced thus far have […]