Saving Face, directed by Alice Wu, is an amusing soap opera that portrays Chinese in New York breaking free from Old World conventions. At the center of the film is the expulsion of a forty-eight-year-old widower “Ma” Pang (played by Joan Chen) from the house of her father (played by Jin Wang), because she is […]

Musicians are celebrated for pouring their emotions into their music. Saraband, directed by eighty-six-year-old Ingmar Bergmann, goes behind the orchestra pit to view those emotions. The film has subtitled acts and could just as easily be performed on stage as on screen, though the actual origin of the film is a broadcast on Swedish television. In

Purple Butterfly (Zi Hudie), directed and written by Ye Lou, takes place in Manchuria in 1928 and Shanghai in 1931 and 1937. The focus is on the conflict between China and Japan. In 1928, Itami Hidehiko (played by Toru Nakamura), whose father played a role in developing the Manchurian railroad system, is in love with fellow

Pure, directed by Gillies MacKinnon, places adorable ten-year-old Paul (played by Harry Eden) in the company of junkies and their suppliers within a working class neighborhood in London’s East End, not far from the Upton Park soccer stadium in West Ham. Mel (played by Molly Parker), Paul’s widowed mother, is hooked on heroin. So is

  In California v McMartin, the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history, the owner and employees of a daycare facility in Manhattan Beach were falsely accused of sexually abusing children. An alcoholic wife estranged from her husband brought the accusation in 1983, which an attorney in the District Attorney’s office used, hoping to

The President’s Last Bang (Geuddae geusaramdeul), directed by Im Sangsoo, is a Korean film, with a “based on a true story” initial title, which purports to explain events surrounding the 1979 assassination of President Park Chunghee (Song Jaeho), whose military coup topped a fledging democracy in 1961. The assassin is Kim Jaegyu (played by Baik

  At the beginning of the academic year, college students and faculty may hope for a film exalting academia, but they are seldom satisfied. The recent movie Proof, directed by John Madden, is hence much appreciated. In the tradition of Good Will Hunting (1997) and A Beautiful Mind (2001), the story in Proof deals with mathematicians. When the film begins, a very

Vin Diesel, a fast-rising star in the macho movie genre, has now transitioned his career past pure action in The Pacifier, directed by Adam Shankman. The story is about a he-man who is hired to be a babysitter and diaperchanger. The plot, however, is intriguing enough that comedic elements, as featured in trailers of the film,

Harry and Max, directed by Christopher Munch, focuses on the difficulty of sustaining some gay relationships. Harry (played by Bryce Johnson), a twenty-three-year-old has-been rock star, has flown from New York to Los Angeles to be with his sixteen-year-old brother Max (played by Cole Williams) in the early spring for a long-deferred camping trip. Having just

The Great Role (Le grand rôle), directed by Steve Suissa, is about Maurice Kurtz (played by Stéphane Freiss), a Jewish actor in Paris who hopes for a big break in his career–to play the title role in a production of Merchant of Venice with a famous director, Rudolph Grichenberg (played by Peter Coyote), who wants