After World War II devastated eastern Europe, the Red Army pushed into the countries allotted to them as spoils, such as Poland. There, they continued the destructive work that the Nazis had begun. Among those hardest hit were the women religious of Warsaw. French Red Cross physician Madeleine Pauliac, sent to find and repatriate the…

I arrived at the advanced screening for Martin Scorsese’s new film, Silence, in the worst possible frame of mind. For one thing, I was running late after seeing to some errands. Also, I was starving. My only option for getting some food in time was a fancy burger joint near the entrance to the multiplex.…

[Spoiler alert: This post is about the end of the movie, Kubo and the Two Strings. However, since, I believe, the ending nearly spoils the film itself, you can read this and still enjoy the other, real pleasures of the movie.] In the dramatic climax of Kubo and the Two Strings, our young hero defies…

The hardest part of watching Boyhood for me wasn’t the film itself but going back to the main menu. You’ve just been immersed in this family’s life for twelve years, and now suddenly you see select moments of that life assembled together in a collage of stills as that soft, wistful song, “Hero,” plays: So…

First of all, a slap on the casting team’s wrist: Never cast Emma “Hermione” Watson in a movie unless you intend for her to be the focus of our attention. Watson has that mysterious movie-star something—a presence that overrides all others. When she first appeared onscreen in Simon Curtis’s film My Week with Marilyn, I…

  Tonight, I’m paying attention to one of my “essentials.” You probably have a movie like this one—a movie that repairs you, that restores your spirits, that put everything into perspective. (If you do, leave a comment so we can all check it out.) But let me tell you what I’m watching. I see a…

Early in director John Curran’s film Stone, parole officer Jack Mabry (Robert DeNiro) sits behind his desk and listens to longtime prisoner Gerald “Stone” Creeson (Edward Norton) plead for parole. The corn-rowed Stone, doing time for a crime that caused his grandparents’ death, dares to tell Jack, “I’m clean as you.” “Maybe, maybe not,” growls…

If I speak in HTML, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of social networking, master Facebook’s privacy settings, and accept 5,000 friend requests, but have not love, I am nothing.                                                         —1 Corinthians 13:1 (paraphrase) In the prologue of David Fincher’s film…

This morning, with my wife at work, my four-year-old daughter at pre-school and my infant son asleep in the next room, I watched the 1955 Danish film Ordet directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, recently voted the #1 film religious or “spiritual” film in a poll facilitated by Image and voted on by forty critics and…

The French filmmaker Claude Berri made some remarkable films during his long career. He directed two of my favorites—Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring, which starred the young Emmanuelle Béart, Daniel Auteuil, and Gerard Depardieu. But he was more than just a director. He was an actor, and he served as producer on…