Audrey Kupferberg

American Fiction has a lot to say. For his screenplay, Cord Jefferson won a slew of awards, including the Oscar and BAFTA honors. When I recently saw this film, I was impressed by the story details, the structuring of the plot, the development of several unique characters, and its dominant message about the stereotyping of blacks in America.

When Stanley Kubrick was in his early twenties, he made up his mind to become a filmmaker. With a few scant family donations and some savings of his own, he put together a small crew. He used his imagination to stretch the uses of a few pieces of equipment. For instance, he used a baby carriage for tracking. What financially strapped indie filmmaker hasn’t done that!

In late 1984, Harry Belafonte foresaw the power of the American pop music scene. When he took note of a famine in Africa, with men, women, and children dying by the thousands, he took steps beyond watching the devastation on the nightly news. He pondered how he and his fellow musicians might help. Perhaps a charity concert?

Death in Paradise has had its share of eccentric Detective Inspectors. Since this series’ first episodes appeared in 2011, the crime rate on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint-Marie has remained shockingly high. Detectives who emigrated from the damp grey streets of London to this lush paradise are kept busy with one murder after another!

Bayard Rustin isn’t a famous name, at least not as recognized as it should be. He was a prominent civil rights activist, leading American movements in socialist politics, nonviolence, and gay rights. In the 1960s, he worked alongside Martin Luther King and is considered to be the most important planner of the historic March on Washington in 1963.

When British actress, filmmaker, writer Emerald Fennell puts her name to a project, the viewer can be pretty sure of its production quality and intelligence… and sometimes its eccentricities. Her film and TV creations include Promising Young Woman for which she won an Oscar, seven episodes of The Crown and six episodes of Killing Eve. Her acting credits include Call the Midwife, the role of Camilla Parker Bowles in The Crown, and Midge in Barbie.

On Valentine's Day we welcome back film expert Audrey Kupferberg to talk about her favorite romantic films. Call with your pick. Ray Graf hosts.

Asteroid City from quirky filmmaker Wes Anderson offers its audience an avant-garde narrative about science-minded genius children at a Junior Stargazer conference in a place that looks like a New Mexico desert town. This is Anderson’s tribute to UFO perceptions and mythology. The film begins with Bryan Cranston as a television announcer. He is presenting a new teleplay. It is 1955, so we see a screen that is at an old-fashioned aspect ratio of 1:33:1 and images that are in black and white. Soon the aspect ratio switches to widescreen and vivid colors appear.

The Holdovers, written and directed by Oscar-winner Alexander Payne, blends a cynical view of the Vietnam era world with a holiday spirit that rarely appears in films today, other than the sad-to-glad romances on the Hallmark Channel. This affecting dramedy is streaming and available on disc.

In 1988, when there were few women producing and directing feature length films, Fran Rubel Kuzui co-wrote, directed and co-produced Tokyo Pop. While Tokyo Pop has been a talked-about film-- even perhaps sort of a cult movie since its original release, Kazui probably will be remembered most for directing the 1992 satirical horror feature, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She is credited as executive producer on the Buffy TV series, but it is a gratuitous credit according to a few online sources.