Audrey Kupferberg

So many writers are putting the emphasis on action or circumstances. What they fail to provide audiences with are proper introductions to their characters. The most successful shows-- whether on stage, films, TV shows, take the time to create interesting, riveting personalities.

Years ago, the late renowned film archivist David Shepard put together a restored version of Merry-Go-Round (1923) from two16mm reduction prints. Film historians and silent film enthusiasts applauded the opportunity to see this notorious film.

Local talent, writer/filmmaker John McCarty, has published many film books and a few mystery novels over the years. He also has made competent, exciting films, many through his studio Leering Buzzard Pictures. Several are available online on Amazon’s Prime Video and YouTube.

1939 was a magical year for Hollywood studio output. Gone with the Wind (which wasn’t controversial then), The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, Wuthering Heights, Dark Victory, and so many more amazing film productions.

When I overhear someone asking the question, “When will season five be released,” I can guess to which show they are referring. Slow Horses, of course!

Writer/director/co-star Jesse Eisenberg and his co-star Kieran Culkin are getting nods and wins for their unique take on the Holocaust tour film. It’s titled A Real Pain, and that’s an apt title. Culkin won an Oscar for his energetic, pain-in-the-butt performance as one of two loving Jewish-American cousins who travel to Poland on a Holocaust tour.

Man Push Cart is not a new film. It isn’t really a classic film. But its relevance has never been stronger than now, twenty years after its first release in 2005. This is a feature film by Ramin Bahrani, a recognized talent in the field of directing and writing. In the case of Man Push Cart, Bahrani wrote, directed, edited, and co-produced. It’s his film all the way!

So often we read about the movie moguls who created and ran the Hollywood movie industry. Louis B. Mayer, Jesse Lasky, Carl Laemmle, Sam Goldwyn, and David O. Selznick to name a few early moguls. And formidable directors who used their authority to make auteur films—D.W. Griffith, John Ford, Cecil B. DeMille, and modern auteurs such as Martin Scorsese.

Payal Kapadia, director and screenwriter of All We Imagine As Light, made history in 2024 when her film won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, the first Indian film to do so. Made in Mumbai, and in many ways a portrait of Mumbai, this film has impressed critics internationally. While considered an Indian film, it’s a coproduction of India with four European countries.

In 1985 and 86, as 54-year-old filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky was dying of lung cancer, he managed to complete The Sacrifice, one of his finest works. Tarkovsky’s career began in his home country, the Soviet Union.