The New Republic

The Other Son Dangerous Liaisons Barrymore   THE MONTAGUE-CAPULET pattern has been used a lot lately, fitting easily the Middle East situation. The girl is Israeli, the boy Arab, or vice versa. Now, in The Other Son, it is altered. Two young men, seemingly Israeli and Arab, are discovered to be brothers, victims of a mistake in a hospital, a Jewish one. Once again racial difference roars. READ MORE >>

All Together Holy Motors Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters   READ MORE >>

La Rafle Simon & the Oaks Sister HITLER’S FACE appears. The screen changes. To make that face the very first image of a film is to wipe away millions of possibilities, is to affirm the ice-shock of evil. We watch these clips from the swift visit that he made to Paris in June of 1942, and bound though we already are, we wonder what this film can tell us of his hell that we don’t already know. READ MORE >>

You’ve Been Trumped How to Survive a Plague Teddy Bear FEW MEN ARE BORN with a name so declarative of tone and temper as Donald Trump. It is like one of those names in Victorian plays. More: he knows how to use it and how to present himself, as his polished career makes clear. Now a British filmmaker named Anthony Baxter gives us a vivid documentary called You’ve Been Trumped that treats him as a smooth, credible, inevitable historical force. READ MORE >>

Meet the Fokkens Mosquita y Mari Dreams of a Life READ MORE >>

Unforgivable Last Ride READ MORE >>

The Well Digger’s Daughter Farewell, My Queen Gypsy READ MORE >>

Oslo, August 31st tells the story of Anders, a thirty-four-year-old Norwegian who has been a patient in a drug rehabilitation center near the city, is now clean, and is given permission to visit the city for one day for a job interview. The screenplay, by the director Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt, is distantly derived from a French novel by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle (from which Louis Malle’s READ MORE >>

In January 2005 I received a copy of a special edition of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. It was inscribed by the author, and the inscription began: Dear Stan, A lifetime ago—summer 1953—you flew to L.A. to feed me ice cream and advice on how to finish this novel! What a grand summer! Actually we were together only four days, but it was grand, and there was ice cream. READ MORE >>

Patience (After Sebald) Polisse Bonsái If we were to choose the fine modern novelist whose work is least apt for screening, it would probably be W.G. Sebald. His novels are meditative, pensive. If we were to choose the least apt among his works, it would probably be The Rings of Saturn. It has no cogent narrative. Here is a film made from that novel, called Patience (After Sebald), that confirms, though it somewhat buffets, our prejudgment. READ MORE >>