Cinema Siren

Sometimes a torrid thriller is just the thing, but they’re so rare these days. Do you miss Joan Crawford and Hope Lange and all those trashy melodramas of the 50s, even though you weren’t alive back then?  Me, too.  Thank the cinematic gods for director Paul Feig, who helms A Simple Favor, a film based …

In limited release this weekend, but worth seeking out in your nearest arthouse theater, is I Am Not a Witch, the British submission for this year’s Oscars in the foreign film category. This multi-award winning directorial debut by Zambian-born Welsh writer-director Rungano Nyoni, through the collaboration with cinematographer David Gallego, uses the stunning backdrops of …

  Anyone who has ever had one of man’s best friends knows just how easily they can transform a bad mood.  With just a solicitous face lick or an enthusiastic greeting at the end of a hard day, they can make everything better.  Lately there have been a lot of hard days in this country, …

The deserved success of Crazy Rich Asians has ostensibly opened the door in Hollywood for more Asian-American actors in lead roles.  Hopefully the powers that be have finally seen proof that diversity sells.  Not only is Crazy Rich Asians a delightful tale, it’s also full of charismatic performers, each of whom could carry a film …

What can one say about The Bookshop, a movie that stars Emily Mortimer, and cinematic treasures co-stars Bill Nighy and Patricia Clarkson? It’s a bit like PBS version of a superhero movie…The Bookshop is directed by Isabel Coixet, who wrote the screenplay from the classic 60s novel by Penelope Fitzgerald. In 1959 England, widow Florence …