Film
PICK My Father, My Lord: A Boy Is Torn Between Faith and Family
Like Amos Gitai’s 1999 Kadosh, Israeli writer-director David Volach’s first feature has scores to settle with ultra-Orthodox Judaism,…
Film
The Women: Meg Ryan Needs a Botox Intervention
Trailing negative buzz and a revolving door of A-list talent since its inception in 1994, Diane English’s pudding…
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Ping Pong Playa: Behold My Paddles of Fury!
Documentary filmmaker Jessica Yu takes a breather from chronicling heavy-duty outsider artists (In the Realms of the Unreal)…
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Frozen River: Melissa Leo and her awful hairdo seek an Oscar
If Melissa Leo were Charlize Theron with artfully applied bags under the eyes, an Oscar nomination would surely…
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Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired: Was the fugitive rapist actually a victim?
Along its winding road to crucifying the American judiciary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired—which already aired to mostly…
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Mamma Mia!: Meryl Streep sings the music of Abba
Sure, it’s nice that the actors sing their own numbers—Meryl Streep has a fab set of pipes, and…
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Brick Lane: Read Monica Alis novel again instead
Bracket the fact that it’s an adaptation of Monica Ali’s great big treat of a 2003 novel about…
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Kit Kittredge: An American Girl: Little miss, minus the sunshine
Unimpeachably proto-feminist and racially inclusive, this tween drama, based on several “American Girl” books about a cub reporter…
Film
When Did You Last See Your Father?: Colin Firth and other Brits fret about their families
Directed by Anand Tucker with the same intelligent tact he brought to Hilary and Jackie, and cleanly adapted…
Film
The Children of Huang Shi
Jonathan Rhys Meyers saves the orphans (for innocent purposes, of course).
Film
Kung Fu Panda: Jack Black and Angelina Jolie target your kids
By all means, gather up the little ones and take them to this perfectly pleasant, very good-looking, modestly…
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Surfwise: Yes, Jews surf
For its first half, Doug Pray’s mesmerizingly ambivalent documentary about an itinerant family of Jewish surfer health nuts…
Film
Sex and the City: Not quite like old times
Oh, please—spoiler alert? Fine, I won’t tell you whether Carrie Bradshaw ties the knot with Mr. Big, even…
Film
Roman de Gare: Claude Lelouch Enjoyably Tweaks His Image
Claude Lelouch’s A Man and a Woman may be one of the silliest love songs in the canon…
Film
The Life Before Her Eyes: Uma Thurman Is Confused; Us, Too
Riddled with high concept, this florid adaptation of Laura Kasischke’s 2002 novel is a horror picture of sorts…
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88 Minutes : Hoo-Ah! Pacino Unleashed!
Jon Avnet’s cheesy new thriller is 105 minutes long, and I feared that 100 of them would be…
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Caramel: Female Bonding in Lebanon
The multiply blessed young Lebanese writer-director Nadine Labaki looks sublimely like Anna Magnani crossed with Penélope Cruz. She…
Film
Married Life: Pierce Brosnan Stars in Slow Crime Melodrama
Film noir and melodrama cast a long shadow over Ira Sachs’ look back at the rotting heart of…
Film
The Counterfeiters: The Holocaust Again, Fresh From the Oscars
Near the beginning of The Counterfeiters, a fact-based Holocaust drama by Austrian filmmaker Stefan Ruzowitzky, we meet Jewish…