By Jared Craig
Perhaps the best way to review this wild satiric film is to get inside the head of Borat, the lead character: Jagshemash! Borat number one in U. S. and A. box office! High Five! Ingredients for make good movie, show racist Americans how stupid they are: find first really smart British/Jewish comedian; add naïve foreigner; mix with rednecks and city slickers for make big laughs at expense of Americans. Read the rest of this entry ?
By Betsy Sherman
The films of the neglected Japanese master Mikio Naruse spotlight the plight of women on the margins of society. Read the rest of this entry ?
By Betsy Sherman
The new film “North Country” gives superb dramatic life to a fictionalized version of the first class-action sexual harassment lawsuit in the U.S. Read the rest of this entry ?
By Ken George
My son’s taste in Halloween costumes hews closer to classic film monsters and less to the super hero du jour. Last year we conjured a mummy out of strips of cotton baton painstakingly glued to street clothes. And this year we are planning to have a pretty respectable bloodsucker wandering the streets of Arlington. Read the rest of this entry ?
By Bill Marx
Ana Rivas send in this piece on a recent confab at Boston University featuring two film critics – Renata Adler, who for a short time in the ’60s was a film critic for The New York Times and A.O. Scott, who is the current chief film critic for the paper. The conversation contained some interesting points on the current condition of film criticism. Read the rest of this entry ?
By Debra Cash
Young love never completely fades. The sight of a group of elderly ladies sighing over the perfect physique and gentlemanly mannerisms they remember embodied in the young George Zoritch is the centerpiece of Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine’s sweet new documentary “Ballets Russes,” which is at the Landmark Cinemas in Kendall Square, Cambridge and other screens in New England. Read the rest of this entry ?
By Salima Appiah-Kubi
Moulin Rogue hinted at it. Hedwig and the Angry Inch made it cool. Everyone Says I Love You nearly killed it. This month’s release Mel Brooks’ movie-turned –musical-turned movie musical, The Producers, has made it official. Ladies and gentlemen, we are now entering the second age of the movie musical. Read the rest of this entry ?
By Betsy Sherman
Woody Allen’s freshest and most potent film in years manages to be much more than an erotic thriller. Read the rest of this entry ?
By Adrienne LaFrance
Woody Allen’s big comeback? His best work in a decade? Genius rivaling “Annie Hall”!? What potent, absorbing, and thoroughly compelling version of “Match Point” were these critics watching? Look, it’s set in London, not New York! Listen, that crackling soundtrack is opera, not jazz! And wait a minute, there is no would-be Woody character in the script! These observations, while worthy of note as departure from typical Allen fodder, do not alone merit the glowing reviews that “Match Point” has received from so many. Read the rest of this entry ?
By Adrienne LaFrance
Picture an alternate 2006 in which the internet slave trade in America is an integral part of the economy, only white men have the right to vote, and culture is devoid of jazz, rock ‘n’ roll and countless other things. Head to Fenway and you’ll hear the national anthem, “Dixie,” played before watching your favorite team—whose name is probably based on a racial slur. Read the rest of this entry ?
