Leonard Quart is Professor Emeritus of Cinema — CUNY and COSI; Contributing Editor, Cineaste; Columnist for Berkshire Eagle; and co-author of American Film and Society Since 1945 —4th Edition (Praeger).
While reading, one begins to feel that an American version of fascism is ominously evolving, and the paper is filled with items that carry a frisson of apprehension that clearly can’t be paranoia on the reader’s part.
In 1900, an accident victim would have been carried home to recover or die, and few hospitals had an “emergency ward.” By 1945, all that had changed and hospitals began to organize their critical care resources into emergency departments.
The film I just saw, "Being Maria," directed by Jessica Palud, centers on Maria Schneider, brilliantly played by Anamaria Vartolomei, who fully captures her anguish and self-destructiveness.
I know self-criticism is as important as criticizing the other side, but Trump and his cohort seem unable to engage in self-criticism or stop operating like a juggernaut that lays waste to its critics and opponents.
Nothing is ever that harmonious in Ozon’s world. There is always a twist at the center of the supposed concord or a dark side to a character who seems utterly benign.
The discipline is not only physical but also emotional; Julie maintains a tight lid, despite much questioning, on the churning anxiety that permeates her existence.
Trump took office and brought a regime set on revenge and retribution and committed to the destruction of institutional norms. It is an administration much more nihilistic than conservative.
A short, 15-minute fictional film nominated for an Academy Award, "A Lien" was directed by brothers David and Sam Cutler-Kreutz. It centers on a young couple confronting the oppressiveness of the immigration process.
While reading about the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, I have been watching a powerful documentary about the plight of West Bank villagers under siege by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and violent ultra-nationalist settlers, whom the army allows to operate with impunity.
McKay’s film has few striking images and camera angles and no special effects or melodramatic turns. Its strength lies in its truthful rendering of the relationships of teenage girls.
I can vividly recall my first years at my experimental CUNY college (over 55 years ago) that was anomalously placed in conservative, working- and lower-middle-class Staten Island.
Sitting in this café, I notice that most of the other customers are in their 20s and 30s—NYU students, people who do tech work or have Wall Street jobs—and I both envy and feel some despair about the years that they have ahead of them.
What makes the film distinctive is less the interweaving of intellectual arguments for and against estate taxes than the personal story about Justin’s relationship to his difficult father, Harvey.
The observational documentary "Union," directed by Brett Story and Stephen Maing, depicts the organizing of a union in a vast, alienating Amazon fulfillment center on Staten Island.
