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The brilliance of Alberto Moravia’s cool diagnostic vision — sleek, clear, cruel, and existential no matter how emotional the conflict — puts us off. His male protagonists often self-consciously analyze their puerility to the point of comic masochism.
Read MoreThe impressive cast and lovely, atmospheric design of the Lyric Stage production cannot completely overcome the flaws of “Big River,” but they make the trip a scenic, often amusing, and enjoyable theatrical journey.
Read MoreA best-seller in France, Emmanuel Carrère’s quirky, but ultimately compelling memoir examines the effects of two disasters on very separate groups of people to whom the writer is connected, at the beginning, quite peripherally.
Read MoreDespite its serious script and premise, “Contagion” is somehow able to retain a subtle element of “fun,” an admirable feat for a movie in which scores of people die in nearly every scene.
Read MoreAutumn hasn’t officially arrived yet, but the fall season of jazz is already ramping up. First up are Mexican vocalist Magos Herrera, saxophonist Evan Parker, and a tribute to the late Joe Maneri.
Read MoreWhat drives serious writing about film? “When Movies Mattered” suggests an answer: it helps for a critic to take a side, not as consumer advocate, hipster crank, or box office predictor, but as a passionate advocate for standards, often taking on the role of separating overpraised films from the unfairly neglected.
Read MoreThe Hedghog’s steady, slow pacing—so rare in any film today—captures the rhythms of haut bourgeois life in Paris and draws out the nuances of how people change and are changed by relationships everywhere. The Hedgehog (Le herisson). Directed by Mona Achache. At the Kendall Square Cinema, West Newton Cinema, and other screens throughout New England.…
Read MoreShould we fictionalize the Holocaust? This is not only a literary question, but a moral one as well, issues raised by the publication of the translation of “The Emperor of Lies,” a novel about the ways in which the Jews in the Lodz ghetto struggled to survive the Nazis.
Read MoreThe film is many things. It is a testament to the restaurant, immortalizing it on celluloid. It’s also a requiem for the restaurant, which you see as it is closing. It’s a manifesto for culinary invention. It’s a tribute to chef Ferran Adrià and what he has wrought, how he has transformed thinking about food. Screens at the MFA tonight through December 30.
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