Based on actual events, Eran Riklis’ Lemon Tree (no connection to Sandy Tolan’s novel The Lemon Tree), which opens today in the Los Angeles area, chronicles a Palestinian widow’s fight…
Asian Cinema
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Nagisa Oshima. “No other director of Oshima’s generation has made more vital, inventive and challenging films, or taken more risks. He is a giant in contemporary cinema.” - Tony Rayns…
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Erotic sex stories: “Debauched Desires.” PRESS RELEASE Kino International and KimStim are proud to release the four-DVD set Debauched Desires: Four Erotic Masterpieces by Masaru Konuma. Directed by the master…
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Tokyo Sonata (2008) movie review: Kiyoshi Kurosawa exposes the unraveling of Japan’s traditional social fabric in this capably acted urban drama.
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Freida Pinto + Dev Patel: SAG Awards’ Best Cast truly = Oscars Precursor? Winners Meryl Streep + Kate Winslet while Producers Guild honors ‘foreigners.’
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Camorra movie Tops European Film Awards + Autism and Human Trafficking Dominate Australian Oscars + Golden Horse Award winners for Jet Li war film.
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John Abraham in ‘Dostana’ wallpaper ‘Gay’ Bollywood film ‘Dostana’ banned in Pakistan: Gay marriage, ‘propagation of homosexuality’ to blame Produced by Karan Johar, and written and directed by Tarun Mansukhani,…
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Antarctica: Gay population of Tel Aviv dreams about lands far away in ensemble Israeli drama. In writer-director Yair Hochner’s intriguing, multi-layered, remarkably well-acted Antarctica, which Regent Releasing is opening tomorrow,…
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In addition to a screening of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will have another East Asian cinematic event in the upcoming weeks: an…
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The Cider House Rules movie with Tobey Maguire. Lasse Hallström’s 1999 Best Picture nominee The Cider House Rules will be the next feature in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts…
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Set (and filmed) in pre-World War II Japan, Kenji Mizoguchi’s female-centered Sisters of the Gion is a fine ‘feminist’ melodrama. Isuzu Yamada stars.
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Jellyfish movie with Ilanit Ben Yaakov and Sarah Adler. I caught Jellyfish (Meduzot in Hebrew), which opens in New York tomorrow and in Los Angeles on April 25, at the…
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Dubai Film Festival: Belly-dancing Laura Ramsey and Kashmiri frozen Body plus CineKink screening of Tony Comstock docs about adult film stars’ private lives.
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National Film Awards: Controversies obscure winners Aug. 10: Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s Bengali-language Kaalpurush - Memories in the Mist, the story of a mild-mannered office clerk (Rahul Bose) whose faltering career is…
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Breaking of the fourth wall at film’s end nearly ruins Abbas Kiarostami’s otherwise effective suicide drama Taste of Cherry. Palme d’Or co-winner.
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Rang De Basanti. As expected, the big winner at the 8th International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Awards held Saturday night at the Hallam FM Arena in Sheffield, United Kingdom, was…
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SAG Awards: British Dames Julie Andrews and Helen Mirren are top winners + immigration and identity theft drama wins Sundance + Gong Li leads Hong Kong.
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Best Foreign Language Film Oscar European slant clear as only 1 exception among contenders + hip-hopping immigration drama tops Guldbagge Awards.
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Akira Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well deserves to be as well known as Rashomon and Seven Samurai. Toshiro Mifune stars.
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The Go Master: Chinese political controversy at the Golden Horse Awards. ‘After This Our Exile’ tops Golden Horse Awards Patrick Tam’s Fu zi / After This Our Exile won this…
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Mexican wrestler vs. invading Martians: Santo el Enmascarado de Plata vs la invasión de los marcianos. Mexican Wrestler Santo vs. the Martians + Bhutanese fantasy-adventure & Helen Mirren: Rio Film…
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The 2006 Seoul Film Festival came to a close this past Sunday, Sept. 17. The Best Film winner in the International Competition section was Sebastián Camposs dramatic comedy La Sagrada…
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Two-time Palme d’Or-winning filmmaker Shohei Imamura died in Tokyo on May 30. The 79-year-old Japanese filmmaker had been suffering from liver cancer. Born in Tokyo in 1926, Imamura entered a…
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Yossi and Jagger with Yehuda Levi and Ohad Knoller. Yossi and Jagger is a tragic love story set in a most unlikely place: an Israeli army camp. Directed by Eytan…
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Seijun Suzuki’s challenging but noteworthy musical Princess Raccoon mixes various cinematic genres and styles. Zhang Ziyi and Joe Odagiri star.
Séraphine de Senlis Biopic Séraphine with Yolande Moreau. The 2009 César ceremony, held this evening at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, offered a few surprises. (In the U.S. and…
Rashomon effect revisited: Toshiro Mifune and Machiko Kyo in Akira Kurosawa classic. Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 classic Rashomon, which officially introduced Japanese cinema to the world at large, will be the…
Muslim cinema at UCLA. Pictured: Brick Lane. “What we wanted to say is, if these people [Iranians, Muslims] scare you, look closer: They have parents, they have lovers, they have…
Lust Caution: Sex scenes fail to offend Venice Film Festival jury. Yesterday, surprising many prognosticators, the controversial, near-sexually explicit spy thriller Se, Ji / Lust, Caution earned Ang Lee his…
Alain Delon, Bianca di Sofia at the Cannes Film Festival screening of ‘To Each His Own Cinema’ At Cannes Film Festival, Roman Polanski blames computers for journalists’ idiocy “I believe…
Released 9 years after atomic bombs were dropped on 2 Japanese cities, the 1954 classic Godzilla / Gojira features 1 of cinema’s greatest monsters.
Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 action classic Seven Samurai is one of those rare films that get better and better with each new viewing. Toshiro Mifune stars.