TURN EVERY PAGE: THE ADVENTURES OF ROBERT GOTTLIEB AND ROBERT CARO
Speaking as a writer who has worked in the publishing world for decades, I view Turn Every Page as a true-life Superhero movie. This portrait of two legends—veteran book editor Bob Gottlieb and venerable biographer Robert Caro—offers a closeup look at…
BABYLON: AN ELEPHANTINE TIME TRIP
Give Damien Chazelle credit for loving movies and Hollywood history. That’s what led him down the long and winding road to Babylon. But we all know what the road to hell is paved with, and this movie is a shining…
WOMEN TALKING: ONE OF A KIND
Sarah Polley has carved her own path, first as an actress and now as a filmmaker, having piloted a highly personal documentary (Stories We Tell) and two frank observational pieces about marriage (Take This Waltz, Away from Her). But…
AVATAR: ON THE CUTTING EDGE
I surrender. It’s easy to poke holes in James Cameron’s films because of awkward dialogue or glib characterizations or his propensity for staging climaxes to his climaxes. But I was completely taken in by Avatar: The Way of Water and overwhelmed…
THE FABELMANS: STEVEN SPIELBERG’S ULTIMATE HOME MOVIE
A handful of directors have given us movies about their youth, but none of their origin stories are as well-known as Steven Spielberg’s. In The Fabelmans the most famous and successful filmmaker of our time offers his version of the events…
THE RETURN OF TANYA TUCKER: FEATURING BRANDI CARLILE
Everyone loves a good comeback story, as witness the current buzz surrounding actor Brendan Fraser, who’s been out of the limelight for a while. Embracing an underdog can seem like a cliché but rekindling a show-business career is no…
TILL: TRANSCENDING THE OBVIOUS
I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Till and being reminded of the horrific fate that befell a 14-year-old black boy in Mississippi back in 1964. I hadn’t reckoned with the worldview of director and co-writer Chinonye Chukyu, who chose not to…
