This is one of the more difficult reviews I’ve had to write all year for the simple fact that writer/director Amy Seimetz’s (the prolific indie actor whose previous feature was Sun Don’t […]
In his own way, songwriter Howard Ashman was as important a creator of a type of musical theater as more established lyricists like Stephen Sondheim, Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Andrew Lloyd Webber, […]
Frances Hodgson Burnett’s acclaimed novel The Secret Garden has been adapted into films, stage musicals and television movies so many times since its publication in 1911 that it’s difficult to keep track. […]
About five years ago, director/producer Gabe Polsky (In Search of Greatness) released Red Army, a film that told the story of the Soviet Union’s famed Red Army hockey team through the eyes […]
Sometimes, having its heart in the right place is enough to make a good movie just a little bit more endearing. Case in point: the new World War II-era drama Summerland about […]
I can’t think of a film—documentary or otherwise—with a more horrifying opening few minutes than the Ron Howard-directed documentary Rebuilding Paradise, which begins with mostly cell phone-captured footage of the residents of […]
Actress Sheila Vand is like a secret weapon in every movie she appears in. When the second generation Iranian-American, born in Los Angeles, shows up in a film, your eyes immediately go […]
There is something so unique and special about Canadian films. I’m not talking about filmmakers or actors from Canada—we’re got plenty of those in Hollywood—or movies that are shot in Canadian cities, […]
If there ever was the perfect match of filmmaker and source material, having Marjane Satrapi (who adapted and directed her own graphic novel about growing up in Iran, Persepolis) direct the life […]
Last October during the Chicago International Film Festival (remember film festivals?), I saw two films within days of each other, and it struck me that they had similar haunting vibes and arguably […]
Written by J.M. Coetzee (based on his novel) and directed by Ciro Guerra (Embrace of the Serpent), Waiting for the Barbarians is set in a rundown but peaceful North African outpost that […]
There has rarely been a time in literary history where the writings of Flannery O’Connor were not problematic to some. That being said, there also hasn’t been a time when her words […]
