Film Reviews

PG-13 | 1h 31min | Drama, Romance | 23 March 2018 (USA) “Dying-Girl Romance” is what I call the genre. Without having to think too much about it, you know exactly whereof I speak, thanks to Nicholas Sparks’s movies. I was ready to slam this one, but then I had to admit to myself that […]

The documented true story of the 102nd Infantry Regiment’s mascot comes to animated life in Richard Lanni’s “Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero."

The short life of Chinese novelist-turned-filmmaker Hu Bo recalls that of the late Marcin Wrona, except it is even more tragic. Both killed themselves before receiving the international accolades bestowed on their final films. In the case of Hu, it was also his first (finished under the supervision of his parents and a sponsoring arts group), […]

NEW YORK—Wine experts love to talk about how important terroir (the combination of land and environmental factors) is for Burgundy wines. That makes it very labor and resource intensive. A prodigal son is only back a few days when his estranged siblings put him to work overseeing the harvest. It is no vacation, but it […]

R | 1h 51min | Action, Comedy, Crime | 9 March 2018 (USA) The best actors do comedy and drama equally well. At the extremes, there are Daniel Day-Lewis and Jim Carrey. Of course, you can’t say three-Oscar Day-Lewis isn’t a “best” actor; the comedic things he does in “My Left Foot” are the height […]

The Canadian premiere of the film “Badass Beauty Queen” will be on March 8, 2018, on International Women’s Day, in Toronto. More info about the screening can be found here.  Anastasia Lin is not your typical beauty queen. She has the requisite looks and resume for the job but also a depth of conviction rare […]

Michael: “I, Tonya” is based on the true story of Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie). Tonya Harding became famous in my childhood when someone attacked her competitor, figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, before they were set to compete against each other at the U.S. national competition and the 1994 Olympics. Tonya’s husband and his friend arranged the […]

PARK CITY, Utah—Jack London’s bestselling animal adventure novel has been adapted as Japanese anime, a 1970s Italian franchise starring Franco Nero, a Disney live-action movie, a 1926 Hollywood silent featuring Strongheart the Dog, and a 1946 Soviet version Red Jack probably would have liked best. Clearly, the story’s popularity has never flagged, but the most […]

PARK CITY, Utah—Maria Yudina was such a brilliant classical pianist, she survived the Great Terror, even though she made no secret of her Orthodox faith and her contempt for Stalin’s brutal regime. According to a story mostly considered apocryphal, she was dragged back for a repeat concert performance, with full orchestra, after Stalin requested (demanded) […]

“Dead Pigs” is like the novel of today’s China Tom Wolfe has yet to write: bitingly satirical, trenchantly observant, with characters from the entire social gamut.

Even prior to the Ming Dynastic Era, Huzhou was known as a center of the silk trade and for the production of ink brushes. Somewhat logically, it is now a regional hub of the Chinese textile industry, but that does not necessarily make it a fun place to live and work—quite the contrary, in fact. […]

During the National Socialist occupation of France, Django Reinhardt’s “Nuages” became an unofficial anthem of the resistance. It doesn’t at all sound fiery, but its swinging sophistication gave people hope. It was yet another reason for the Germans to dislike Reinhardt, who already had two conspicuous strikes against him, as a Romany jazz musician, but […]

Is it even possible that the major networks and newspapers reporting on a national news story could be considered superficial, and Heaven forbid, perhaps a tad biased? Take for instance the case of the world’s most notorious figure skater. Tonya Harding had the misfortune of living through a scandal that broke just as the TV […]

R | 1h 55min | Comedy, Crime, Drama | 10 November 2017 (USA) Mildred Hayes’s teenage daughter Angela was raped/murdered seven months prior to when the story starts, and mom (Frances McDormand) is ravenous for justice. That’s “Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri.” What a strange movie title. Well, it’s a strange, demented, often hilarious, […]

Some will ask in partially good faith whether we really need another Holocaust documentary. Oddly enough, those same people never seem to ask if we really need another film about the environment. There have been a fair number released after Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List” and Claude Lanzmann’s “Shoah.” Many of them were excellent, such as “Inside Hana’s Suitcase,” […]

The Armenian Genocide did not suddenly happen. The Ottoman Empire orchestrated the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the Hamidian Massacres of 1894–1896. Carried out without the obscuring benefit of the fog of war, it was essentially an early rehearsal for the genocide conducted by the Young Turks government in 1915. For […]

Violence can be swift and merciless when a population is dehumanized, and the resulting carnage can be devastating. When crimes against humanity occur, it often falls to outside voices to raise the alarm and put a spotlight on the plight of the persecuted. To this end, film is a powerful tool in the hands of […]

It only took 45 years, but Germany has finally recognized the 11 Israeli athletes and coaches murdered at the 1972 Munich Olympics, along with a West German policeman. So much for German efficiency. In contrast, it took less than a day for the PLO-offshoot Black September to permanently shatter the illusion of Olympic brotherhood. The […]

“1945” is very highly recommended, dealing the period after WWII yet before the Soviet incursion, but it probably requires sophisticated viewers.

TORONTO—Anastasia Lin received global media attention after she won the Miss World Canada title in 2015 but was denied the chance to compete in the finals held in China—her own country of birth—for speaking out about human rights violations in that country. Her principled stance and courage to continue drawing attention to grave abuses by […]

Once a senior intelligence officer and manager with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Michel Juneau-Katsuya doesn’t mince words when it comes to China’s Confucius Institutes. “They’re spies, period,” Juneau-Katsuya said. “There are many countries and many intelligence services that concur with our conclusions that, unfortunately, this was a Trojan horse.” Juneau-Katsuya, who worked at CSIS […]

By now, there should be no debating that Angelina Jolie is a talented director, capable of handling the most challenging subject matter with assurance and sensitivity. Those who continue to denigrate her skills because she’s also a movie star and tabloid fixture are running out of ammunition. There also should be no debating the value […]

R | 1h 51min | Action, Thriller | 15 September 2017 (USA) Well-written spy novels have always been ridiculously addictive. There’s a related genre now; I call it “operator porn.” It’s not about debonair, James Bond-type, tuxedo-under-wetsuit-wearing spies, but rather wetsuit-wearing, ultra-tough Navy SEALS and deadly Army Delta Force operators. These genres overlap in the same […]

  TORONTO—The documentary “The China Hustle,” which premiered recently at the Toronto International Film Festival, shows how hundreds of Chinese companies listed on North American stock exchanges can cause billions of losses to investors due to lack of proper oversight. These Chinese firms enter the U.S. stock market through reverse takeovers with American companies and […]

“The Teacher” combines critically examines of the Communist experience and its effect on the day to day—here on children and their parents.

R | 1h 58min | Action, Comedy | 18 August 2017 (USA) Remember that scene in 1993’s “In the Line of Fire” when the CIA assassin (John Malkovich) snaps at the Secret Service agent (Clint Eastwood)? “The same government that trained me to kill, trained you to protect. Yet now you want to kill me—while […]

PG-13 | 1h 46min | Action, Drama, History | 21 July 2017 (USA)  Go ahead and put “Dunkirk” in the same class as “Apocalypse Now,” “Platoon,” “Saving Private Ryan,” and “Braveheart.” The only difference is that those four premiere war movies contain brief flashes of levity and even fun, whereas “Dunkirk” is one long, sustained note […]