Julie Shles’ quietly amusing and generally well-acted Tel Aviv-set fairy tale Joy discovers magic in unexpected places.
Asian Cinema
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Shonali Bose’s uneven family drama Amu traces the connection between a long-ago adoption and the bloody anti-Sikh Delhi riots of 1984.
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This fall, New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is presenting the film series “Early Autumn: Masterworks of Japanese Cinema from the National Film Center, Tokyo.” The series consists of fifty-three…
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India-Pakistan relations – in the form of a star-crossed romantic liaison between Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta – has topped the Indian Film Academy Awards.
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Cannes Film Festival winners: Renowned Belgian brothers receive their 2nd Palme d’Or + US performer Tommy Lee Jones is Best Actor for self-directed performance.
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Banned Chinese film – but is it really? – wins Tribeca Film Festival’s top prize, while Russian space drama + El Salvador Civil War tale are Moscow and Seattle faves.
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Stephen Chow’s blockbuster action-comedy has beaten Wong Kar-Wai international hit while strangely failing to top direction and screenplay at Hong Kong Film Awards.
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A Bollywood ‘priest sex movie’ - about the affair between a clergyman (Shiney Ahuja) and a much younger woman - has infuriated Indian Catholic radicals.
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The controversy surrounding the Meera Nazar kiss has the Pakistani actress vs. that country’s Ministry of Culture. Ashmit Patel is her Bollywood costar.
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NSFC Awards surprise: A Clint Eastwood melodrama is the unexpectedly mainstream winner of the generally more ‘esoteric’ U.S.-based critics group.
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Award-winning Iraq War-themed drama gets US distribution + veteran Oscar winner has been hospitalized + Antarctica is getting its very first movie theater.
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First-rate athlete Tony Jaa is the one positive element in the juvenile and reactionary martial arts actioner Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior.
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The 1977 Oscar-nominated political thriller Operation Thunderbolt is a dismal failure as both cinema and propaganda. Klaus Kinski star.
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War-related movies were the clear favorites at the San Sebastian Film Festival, where Lifetime Achievement honors went to Hollywood celebrities Woody Allen and Annette Bening.
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French film stars Jeanne Moreau, Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche among celebrities offering support for hostages being held in Iraq. Also: Iranian filmmaker hospitalized after arrest.
Sikh protests and 2 as-yet-unclaimed bomb attacks at Delhi film theaters have followed the release of a Bollywood action comedy starring Sunny Deol.
Lior Ashkenazi is perfect as a guilt-ridden Mossad hitman in Eytan Fox’s flawed but gripping (gay-ish) political-psychological drama Walk on Water.
The Golden Horse Awards’ surprise Best Film is an environmentally conscious Tibet-set ‘Western’ that beat an all-star international hit directed by Wong Kar-Wai.
Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan asserts that his latest movie - the historical political/biographical drama Mangal Pandey: The Rising - is not anti-British propaganda. Ketan Mehta directed.