?It?s not rehabilitation?we know that?s worthless?so we do our best to break you.? Papillon is inspired by semi-autobiographical bestselling books (Papillon and Banco) and the 1973 film with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman (with a screenplay by Dalton Trumbo).?...
Every year many fourth grade students read Island of the Blue Dolphins in school. ?The book is a fictional account based in a historic tale of a Native American woman who spent eighteen years alone on San Nicolas Island (part of California?s Channel Islands). Alone on...
I recently had the opportunity to talk by phone with Lior Raz, who plays Isser Harel in Operation Finale, the story of the 1960 Israeli covert mission to capture Adolph Eichmann in Argentina. Since Lior is an Israeli, I focused on the importance of this story in...
?Will God forgive us?? A pastor?s grief, guilt, and growing crisis of faith gives rise to First Reformed, from writer-director Paul Schrader. Schrader has delved into faith before in films like Hardcore and The Last Temptation of Christ (for which he wrote the...
In 2010 The Cove won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It showed in somewhat graphic detail the hunting and capturing of dolphins in Taiji, Japan. It stirred outrage in many viewers that such things could go on. But as is almost always the case, there is...
Memoir of War (La Douleur) is a semi-autobiographical story of writer Marguerite Duras recounting her time late in World War II and its aftermath. Duras was a part of the French Resistance and went on after the war to have a career as a writer and a filmmaker...
This may be the perfect time for The Wife to find its way to the screen. It seems almost tailor made for the Time?s Up movement. Perhaps the fact that Jane Anderson?s screenplay (and Meg Wolitzer?s book it is based on) is fifteen years old reflects the way women have...
?Everyone gets their due.? The power of authority is at the center of The Captain, a German film from Robert Schwentke. But the authority in the film is based in a lie. In spite of that, the authority is perceived as real by everyone involved. Based on a true story,...
Until fairly recently, Spike Lee was the only go-to African-American filmmaker. Over the last few decades he has given us important looks at racism and the African-American experience, in both narrative and documentary forms. His newest film, BlacKkKlansman, continues...