Category: Film Appreciation
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‘Firebrand’ Leads the Narrative Slate at Tribeca Festival
Debuting at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, Firebrand has made the Tribeca Festival its final stop before opening in theaters on June 14. A distinct departure for Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz, this is the latest in a long line of cinema portrayals of the notorious King Henry VIII of England. Onetime matinee idol Jude Law is surprisingly…
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Tribeca’s Doc Lineup Includes Liz Taylor’s Lost Tapes and a Cold Case Reopened
The Tribeca Festival, launched after the September 11 attack by Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal to revitalize the neighborhood, continues to thrive in its 23rd year. With 114 feature films screening from June 5-16, it’s impossible to catch everything, but I’ve had relatively good luck with the selections I’ve chosen so far. The festival…
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Lincoln Center’s 23rd ‘Open Roads’ Offers Another Welcome Look at Today’s Italian Cinema
Film at Lincoln Center is once again providing a welcome New York showcase for new Italian films with its 23rd annual “Open Roads” series, running May 30 to June 6, 2024. Thirteen films will be screened, and I’ve had the chance to preview four of them. The opening-night attraction, Comandante (aka The War Machine), tells…
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New York and the Movies—An Enduring Combination
In the pantheon of movie greats, there’s one star that has outlasted all others, lending spectacular support to everyone from Charlie Chaplin and Gene Kelly to Barbra Streisand and Robert De Niro. That star is New York City, the endlessly photogenic locale of countless movies since the silent era. The list of New York-set films…
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A Film from 1961 Leads My 2023 Ten Best List
I said it back in March, and I’ll say it again: The best film of 2023 was made in 1961. It’s baffling that Dino Risi’s masterly Una Vita Difficile was never released in America until this year, but there you go. (More details below.) That’s not to say there weren’t many exceptional new films this year. My…
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New York Film Festival Spotlights Iconic Men—and Their Long-Suffering Partners
It’s probably a coincidence, but a recurring theme has emerged at this year’s New York Film Festival: iconic men and their long-suffering female partners. Three films focus on famous, larger-than-life males, but with equal weight given, story-wise, to the women who put up (or don’t) with their titanic, self-aggrandizing egos. For the first half of…
Kevin Lally on Film 