After graduating from high school in Alabama, Melanie Carmichael (played by Reese Witherspoon) went to New York “to make something of her life.” We see the result, seven years later, in Sweet Home Alabama, directed by Andy Tennant. She is a successful fashion designer who has dazzled Andrew Hennings (played by Patrick Dempsey), the son of […]

City of God (Cidade de Deus), codirected by Katia Lund and Fernando Meirelles, is a film from Brazil that portrays the chaos of life in the slums of Río de Janeiro. The film is based on the novel of the same title by Paulo Lins, who lived in the slum for thirty years. Accordingly, the

  In New York, a bailiff does not immediately escort a person sentenced to prison to a paddy wagon en route to prison. Instead, a convicted felon may be allowed to settle affairs before reporting by a particular time to court-ordered confinement. That is the thin premise for 25th Hour, directed by Spike Lee, who clearly

L’Auberge Espagnole, directed and written by Cédric Klapisch, demonstrates that Europeans indeed enjoy their “melting pot” differences and are indeed happy to be in a single political home. The film focuses on a group of postgraduate students in their early twenties who share an apartment in Barcelona and become intimately acquainted with one another’s eccentricities.

KENNEDY’S SUPPOSED KILLER CONFESSES IN INTERVIEW WITH THE ASSASSIN President Lyndon Johnson, interviewed for the Warren Report on the assassination of President John Kennedy, expressed the view that there was a conspiracy involving several persons, not a lone gunman. His remark was deleted from the report. In addition, many witnesses who might have refuted the

What could be more heavenly than a beautiful house surrounded by trees resplendent with autumn leaves, a happily married couple, and two adorable children in 1957, when civility and courtesy were the norm in interpersonal relations? In Far from Heaven, written and directed by Todd Haynes, the principal characters discover private hells that were absent

Many American films depict the South in a very bad light, so a more balanced cinematic presentation may tend to be heartwarming. The Rising Place, directed by Tom Rice and based on the novel by David Armstrong, falls into the latter category. The film centers on Emily (“Millie”) Hodge (played by Laurel Holloman as a