The New Republic

Hunger IFC Films American Swing Magnolia Pictures Steve McQueen is a well-known British artist who is becoming a well-known film-maker. Hunger, his first feature film, is less a promising work than a fulfillment. It has nothing to do with Knut Hamsun's famous novel of the same title (beautifully filmed in 1966). It deals with the Irish Troubles, specifically the hunger strike in a Northern Ireland prison led by Bobby Sands in 1981, a strike that led to his death and nine others. READ MORE >>

Everlasting MomentsIFC films12Sony Pictures ClassicsThe best films I know by the greatly gifted Jan Troell, who is Swedish, are set in the Scandinavian past. Here's Your Life takes place in Sweden during World War I; The Emigrants and The New Land form a diptych about nineteenth-century Swedish immigrants; Hamsun is of course about the Norwegian writer who died in 1952. Merely to mention those films is to wish that every viewer knew them. READ MORE >>

Katyn Koch-Lorber Films Tokyo! Liberation Entertainment READ MORE >>

From “Album of My Germany”   READ MORE >>

From “Album of a Theater Critic” One of the jobs I have had in my life was the post of theater critic of The New York Times, where I was for eight months in 1966. It seems now like merely one of the jobs. When I went there, it seemed final. READ MORE >>

From “Album of Marilyn Monroe” READ MORE >>

Everlasting Moments. The lyric-humanist Swedish director Jan Troell has made another gem, this time chiefly about a working-class wife and mother in 1907 who happens to acquire a camera. Her view of herself and her life alters through this camera in Troell’s exploratory rather than highly dramatic way. (Reviewed 4/1/09) READ MORE >>

GomorrahIFC FilmsOur City DreamsDi San Luca Films READ MORE >>

Defiance. The forests of Belarus during World War Two help the near-miraculous rescue of 1200 Jews from the Germans. The basic story is true--how two thuggish Polish-Jewish brothers shepherded their flock to safety. The action sequences around this story are sometimes strained, still the film is thrilling. (Reviewed 2/18/09) READ MORE >>

Defiance Paramount Of Time and the City Strand Releasing READ MORE >>