cinema

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.

Of late, I have been enjoying the works of talented British actress, comic, writer, Joanna Scanlan. On TV, she can do it all. She won awards for her work on Getting On, a Britcom that ran from 2009 to 2012. She brightens any quiz shows on which she appears, such as Would I Lie to You? which is on Britbox and other sites, and she won a BAFTA for her lead performance in After Love from 2020.

The independent cinema that has served Williamstown, Massachusetts for over a century is taking on a major upgrade and expansion project.

Comic actor Will Ferrell met TV comedy writer Anthony Steele more than thirty years ago when the two worked on Saturday Night Live. Since then, their friendship has been strong. One day a couple years ago, Will received a letter from Harper Steele to inform her – not his but her, buddy that she has transitioned.

As part of this year’s Valentine's Day celebration, how about screening a few of the great classic romance films?

Emilia Perez is a film like no other. When I started to watch it, I gave up after ten minutes. This can’t be for me, I thought. It’s all flash. After a couple friends mentioned how exciting a film it is, I returned to Netflix to give it a second chance. So glad that I did!