Film

REFLECTIONS OF CULTURAL IDENTITY IN A BEAUTIFUL, GRACEFUL FILM An affecting and sturdy Henry Golding (who made his feature debut with Crazy Rich Asians), plays Kit, who hasn’t been to Ho Chi Minh City since he was six, when he was taken to England with his family so they could escape the brutal Vietnam War….

THE TITLE SAYS IT ALL More prurient than incisive, Bare documents the creation of an all-male, all-naked modern dance piece by Belgian dancemaker Thierry Smits. From audition to opening night, there are so many wondrous money shots here, artful in a Robert Mapplethorpe style, that we are almost willing to forgive the fact we never…

TOUCHED BY CRUTCH If you’re looking for inspiration (and who isn’t these days?), check out the documentary Crutch, which is having its world premiere at the DOC NYC festival from November 11-19. I confess I knew little about Bill Shannon, an almost uncategorizable performance artist who break dances and skates on crutches. Diagnosed in childhood…

DROWNING UNDER TOO MANY HATS It’s unimaginable to think what parents go through when their child has been deployed to war. The wait, the worry, the hand-wringing. For   Rose (Melora Walters), her son’s deployment has put her in an implacable funk. She found heroin in his room, and told him if he’s gonna die it…

AVA DUVERNAY, JULIE DASH AND EUZHAN PALCY IN “ACADEMY DIALOGUES” SERIES FINALE Part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Academy Aperture 2025 initiative, “Academy Dialogues: It Starts With Us” is a new series of virtual panels which, so far, have been graceful, eloquent and fascinating looks at race, ethnicity, gender, history, opportunity…

REMEMBER HIS NAME I like when some experts discuss global warming with a realistic bent, but allow that the subject may be too overwhelming for some, causing inertia. The best thing, we are told, is to start now with whatever steps we can take so that it doesn’t seem so daunting to fix a huge…

OVER THE WALL At the heart of the the feature music documentary Fandango at the Wall — which HBO premieres beginning Friday, September 25 — is the “Fandango Fronterizo” music festival that takes place annually on both sides of the Tijuana-San Diego border. In the film, Jorge Francisco Castillo, who founded the festival, invites producer…

WHEN FRIENDLY SKIES GET TESTED Over the course of 18 months, director Al Bailey followed his friend “Christian” as his career as a long-haul pilot takes him to the far corners of the Earth. Widowed and lonely, “Christian” uses his career to find new love in far-off lands as the camera captures his misadventures in…

THE DIVIDE BETWEEN NATURE AND CIVILIZATION IS DARK INDEED The new film The Dark Divide tells the true story of renowned lepidopterist and nature writer Dr. Robert Pyle’s perilous 1995 journey across one of America’s largest undeveloped wildlands. Based on Pyle’s terrific book Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide, the picture opens with a…

THE GODDESS OF FORTUNE SMILES ON THIS AMAZING FILM Two standout movies in this year’s Frameline Festival contemplate, each in its own way, men suffering mid-life crises. One, from Ireland, is the contemplative Rialto (review here). This one, The Goddess of Fortune from Italy, is an endearing comedy/drama set in Rome. Diverging from his Antonioni-like…

ON THE RIALTO Two standout movies in this year’s Frameline Festival contemplate, each in its own way, men suffering mid-life crises. One is the terrific The Goddess of Fortune from Italy (review here). The other, from Ireland, is Rialto. Based on Mark O’Halloran’s play Trade, and directed by Peter Mackie Burns, this perfectly paced and…