Review: Before You Know It finds new edge to family dysfunction
Movie Review: Before You Know It
Soap opera star Judith Light plays to her strengths as an actress who gave up her two daughters to pursue her career, only to be reunited as an awkward family in later life. Director, actor and co-writer Hannah Pearl Utt finds a female way of communicating -- wrapped in apology and accusation -- that gives the unconvincing plot a jolt of novelty that serves the larger purpose.
Review: The Kitchen is a woman’s place, indeed
Movie Review: The Kitchen
Part revenge-quest, part sisterhood of the travelling pants with pistols, The Kitchen has so many male constructs sewn into its inseam, first-time director Andrea Berloff doesn’t have a lot of room to move. It’s a man’s cut, yet but makes it comfortable by wearing it all a size too large, boyfriend style, writes critic Katherine Monk.
Skate Kitchen slices, dices dude culture
Movie Review: Skate Kitchen
Crystal Moselle’s follow-up to The Wolfpack returns the viewer to the margins of New York City, this time in fictional form as we hook up with some real-life skateboarders who kick-flip chick stereotype.
Finding the Real Mensch in Menashe
Movies: Interview with Joshua Z. Weinstein
A documentary filmmaker explores the closed world of New York's Hasidic community in his first narrative feature shot entirely in Yiddish with amateur actors and a leading man who'd never set foot in a cinema
By Katherine Monk
There are approximately 330,000 Hasidic and Ultra-Orthodox Jews living in New York City, yet, the community remains largely closed and somewhat mysterious to outsiders. Filmmaker Joshua Z. Weinstein wanted to know more, so he focused his documentary skills on the world at his doorstep in the boroughs and neighbourhoods of his native New York City.
The result is Menashe, a narrative feature shot entirely in Yiddish with an amateur cast of community members — some of whom had never set foot in a theatre until the film’s debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Weinstein says the experience was rich and memorable, but it’s not something he’ll do again — if only because as a director, he’d like ...
Norman finds second Gere
Movie review: Norman
Taking on the role of a New York fixer in Joseph Cedar's modern iteration of the 'Court Jew' archetype, Richard Gere proves he's capable of suppressing his sexiness in service to a worthy, if pathetic, cause
Big Time, Small Talk, Woodstock
Book Review: Small Town Talk
Barney Hoskyns is the leading chronicler of the Woodstock generation and he explores the lasting legacy of a mindset birthed in mud-covered love in his new book, Small Town Talk
And so it ends… with a bang.
Fiction: Mob Rule - Part 49
The family feud finally explodes in a hailstorm of bullets and foaming blood on the front lawns of Hyannis as Jack and his mob brothers storm the Kennedy castle
By John Armstrong
We got off the highway and headed toward Marchant Avenue, the road the compound lays on. Just before the turn for the long driveway I waved them to a halt again and got back out, standing in the street and directing the trucks down the road toward their respective “points of insertion”, as Beppe put it.
Then I stood there looking at my watch. At two minutes to five, in the first misty light of dawn and the fog off the Atlantic still swirling around us, I got back in and waved our own group forward and into position. Then we waited again, listening to birds chattering in the trees.
A car came down the road and slowed to see what was going on. Our driver pulled his gun from under his jacket and waved the driver through. Just as he passed, the first semi in our group ...
A hairy homecoming
Fiction: Mob Rule - Part 45
Back in the arms of the armed and dangerous in New York, Jack learns the gang war that started before he left on the campaign trail has been smouldering ever since
By John Armstrong
It was clear sailing the rest of the way, straight through on the old highway past Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia. By the time we hit DC, the road was in even better shape and we made fine time, turning heads as Brown Lightning roared past shining, chrome-dripping newer cars like they were parked by the side of the road.
It was a good thing, too, because we were stone-broke. The Morrisville Bridge over the Delaware into New Jersey took the last of our money and we were still short the full price. Vanessa got us through, turning her purse upside down, shaking it to prove we really had nothing left and batting big eyes at the poor man, a hitch in her voice and a tremble in her shoulders warning of imminent tears. He offered her a Kleenex and waved us through. He ...
