While directing In the Family (2012), Patrick Wang also plays the central role as Joey Williams, who was born in Tennessee, adopted after his parents died. After developing a lover relationship with Cody Hines (played by Trevor St. John), he moved into the latter’s house and became co-father of Chip (Sebastian Banes). Cody’s wife and […]

PROPAGANDA DEBASES ZERO DARK THIRTY A docudrama about the most famous manhunt of the 21st century, the quest for Osama Bin Laden, Zero Dark Thirty, shows how Maya (played by Jessica Chastain) and others relentlessly process information to determine the whereabouts of the Al-Qaeda leader and how to take him down, step by step. A

HYDE PARK ON HUDSON REMINISCES President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was revered for his sublime confidence in people. In Hyde Park on Hudson, directed by Roger Michell, the private life of Roosevelt (played by Bill Murray) is the main focus. The person of most interest, however, is cousin Daisy (played by Laura Linney), who is summoned

GENERATION P REVEALS THE FIRST DECADE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION When Generation P begins, Russians are content taking sunbaths at a seaside resort. Everyone is secure with a job and a residence. Then Boris Yeltsin pulls Russia out of the Soviet Union. Economic and social chaos follow. The hero of the film, Babylen Tatarsky (played

WON’T BACK DOWN IS NOT FRONT AND CENTER ABOUT SOLUTIONS  Compulsory public education began in part to serve the demands for literate workers in the early industrial revolution. Nowadays, the presumed purpose is to provide a path to social mobility in a country with much less social mobility than was once the case. Those for

ARBITRAGE PORTRAYS THE NARCISSISM OF A BILLIONAIRE Prospective filmviewers may expect to learn a little more about the craft of arbitrage in a film of the same title. Instead, 50-year-old billionaire Robert Miller (played by Richard Gere) has many irons in the fire. He took out a loan that he cannot pay back. He is

THE MASTER DEMONSTRATES HOW A CULT CAN DEVELOP It is 1950. Freddie Quell (played by Joaquin Phoenix), recently discharged as a naval sergeant, has undiagnosed post-traumatic stress syndrome and seeks to drown his stress with alcohol until he runs into Lancaster Todd (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman), who has developed a therapy that might help

The Campaign, directed by Jay Roach, pits Cam Brady (played by Will Ferrell) against Marty Huggins (played by Zach Galifianakis), vying for victory in a Republican primary election for a Congressional seat in North Carolina. The aim of the film is to expose corruption in American politics today, especially the way in which moneyed interests

After the Wizard, directed by the screenwriter Hugh Gross, is presumed to be a sequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum’s classic children’s story of 1900, which had a profound political meaning at the time. After all, Baum wrote thirteen sequels. But neither adults nor children will enjoy Gross’s nonsequitur nonsequel. Whereas

China Heavyweight (Qian chui bai lian), directed by Yung Chang, starts from 1979, when the People’s Republic of China first allowed the sport of boxing. (Previously, boxing was considered a decadent Western sport.) Similar to the United States, the less advantaged take up the sport as a way to advance themselves. But there the similarity