I pay attention to reviewers and I look to the by-line on a write up before I get too far into the essay. It matters to me who wrote them, an old acquired habit that seems to be spreading across more and more media for me. In any case, I read a review by AO Scott on the new film Summer Hours by Olivier Assayas. The review is as important to understanding the film as seeing the film itself. (more…)

On Sunday night I ventured to the Museum of Modern Art to take in Hugo Perez’ NEITHER MEMORY NOR MAGIC as part of their Documentary Fortnight program. The film deals with extraordinary but difficult subject matter — the slow death of the iconic Hungarian poet Miklos Radnoti at the hands of the Nazis during World (more…)

SHREEKANT POL writes from Mumbai about the MOMA screening of Dev D: The story is based on a famous Indian novel of the ’10s (Dev Das) that created the ‘immortal lover’ or the ‘tragic-romantic-hero’ that you see so often in Indian films. The novel has been made into a film three times (more…)

Terence Davies was born in 1945 to working-class Catholic parents in Liverpool, England. After a stint as a shipping clerk, Davies attended drama school, where he created the screenplays for what would become a trilogy of autobiographical films dealing with issues of religion, sexuality, (more…)

Last night I scampered down to the IFC Center to take in Stacy Peralta’s incendiary documentary CRIPS AND BLOODS: MADE IN AMERICA. I’ve got two reviews, one of the film itself, and one (more…)

In Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, Jamal (Dev Patel) is a young man from the slums of Mumbai who is chosen at random to enter a Who Wants to Be a Millionaire-style contest on television. His tempestuous life experiences in the slum help him so completely (more…)