film

Lebanon’s history has been marked by World Wars, famine, and the League of Nations French Mandate. Since its independence in 1943, Lebanon has seen civil war, occupation, political turmoil, and the massive influx of Palestinian refugees – and healthy production of films.

In the olden days, actors were expected to be all-around performers. Singing and dancing were requirements that even those we think of as heavy dramatic actors were forced to learn.

In awards season speeches for his lauded performance in Joker, in 2020, Joaquin Phoenix first thanked the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for recognizing the link between animal agriculture and climate change by serving a plant-based meal at the Golden Globes. One month later, in his Academy Award acceptance speech, he condemned speciesism (and specifically the dairy industry taking baby calves from their mothers), connecting the issue to broader fights against injustice and the belief that any one nation, people, race, or gender has the right to dominate, control, use, and exploit another with impunity.

The opening credits of the new documentary Fauci alternates between footage venerating Dr. Anthony Fauci and heated news and radio clips suggesting the world-renowned immunologist and Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases should be fired, jailed, or even executed, and have his head “put on a pike to serve as an example to other bureaucrats.

On March 12, 2020, all 41 theaters in the famed Broadway district of midtown Manhattan shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly 18 months later, with the reopening of the majority of live stage shows slated to take place starting in September and stretching into October, director Oren Jacoby’s On Broadway arrives as a perfectly timed valentine.

The passionate subjects are the stars of director Ashley O’Shay’s Unapologetic, a thought-provoking new documentary opening on August 27 in New York City and Toronto, and September 3 in Los Angeles. If its loose structure renders this timely look at the movement for Black lives and dignity something of a sermon to the choir, the film possesses at least one attribute which marks it as a worthwhile offering of nonfiction advocacy for those interested in current events and public affairs: a hardwired connection to the unswerving, electric moral certitude of youth.

Jeffrey Schwarz, like most cinephiles, has a special love for the film Sunset Boulevard. While the award-winning documentarian thought he knew everything about Billy Wilder’s 1950 Hollywood masterpiece, which introduced the world to Norma Desmond, an aging actress brilliantly played by Golden Globe-winning Best Actress Gloria Swanson, he was surprised to discover a unique afterlife to the cinematic classic.

An easygoing and consistently engaging if somewhat staidly told documentary biopic, Barbara Lee: Speaking Truth to Power benefits from both the considerable charisma and ongoing relevance of its subject, and the important lessons to be drawn from her fight for positive societal change. With interviewees including Alice Walker, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cory Booker, Van Jones, Danny Glover, and the late John Lewis, among others, director Abby Ginzberg’s movie, receiving a nationwide theatrical release alongside digital distribution on iTunes, Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video, shines a light on the 12-term Congresswoman, and how her personal experiences connect to her public service.

Around the globe, football is far and away the world’s most dominant and popular sport. In the United States, though, it’s known as soccer, and American football (that oddly named game which actually involves very little kicking) is the cultural king.

The history of Syrian cinema is inextricably linked to its political history beginning in 1920 when the French took colonial control, forcing King Faisal to leave the country. Under their rule, many theatres were built in Damascus, but they screened primarily French films.