Summer is for mindless entertainment?  Not many serious films to select among over the past few weeks of releases, but some decent escapist fare has proved diverting.  A week ago, looking for some cinematic diversion, I found "Thor" was still playing in a handful of theaters in Manhattan and decided to take a look.  Anything that Anthony Hopkins is in is probably worth seeing, I thought.

"Thor" is directed by Kenneth Branagh, but don't expect … <Read More>

Earlier this week I took in a showing of "Beginners," a film by Mike Mills based on his own life experience of having an elderly father "come out" as gay after his mother died.  Although everything is "fictionalized" with different names and some imagined situations, to judge by interviews with Mr. Mills the essence of the film is true to life.  As such, it makes a contribution to the ongoing development of public understanding of … <Read More>

A busy few days – attending a legal pedagogy conference (at which I spoke), attending the Congregation Beit Simchat Torah service to hear Rabbi Kleinbaum's annual Gay Pride sermon, and struggling to finish up the June issue of Law Notes on Saturday before attending the surprise birthday party for my cousin Renee Markowitz – managed to tie me up so completely that I haven't posted anything in several days.  But today I decided to give … <Read More>

Just before heading down to Florida last week I went to see Woody Allen's film "Midnight in Paris," and after returning to NYC, I went this afternoon to see Terrence Malick's "Tree of Life."  Two more different films in such a brief interval are hard to imagine – but they actually had something very much in common:  a commanding director's sensibility and eagerness to take on big questions about the nature of life.

Allen's film … <Read More>

I went to this one by default.  That is, I was interested in going to a movie, which I hadn't done in a while.  After looking at what was on offer at the local multiplexes, I picked this one because it sounded the least fluffy and irrelevant of all the new flicks on offer.  I found it to be an interesting movie, going to some lengths to recreate a time and place (the traveling circuses … <Read More>

Sunday evening I caught a showing of "The Conspirator," the new costume drama directed by Robert Redford, dramatizing the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and the subsequent trial before a military commission of Mary Surratt, the Washington, D.C., boardinghouse keeper who was tried for conspiracy to murder the President, the Vice President, and the Secretary of State.  I am a sucker for historical fiction on the screen, especially when it is as well done as … <Read More>

Some stories are so compelling that filmmakers just want to have a go at them, regardless of the existence of numerous prior treatments.  The newest version of Jane Eyre is a real beauty, despite the gritty realism of the settings, precisely because one has a strong feeling that one is doing a bit of time-traveling and really visiting early 19th century rural England.  I thought Mia Wasikowska was excellent as Jane – one really believes … <Read More>

In Ormond Beach, Florida, visiting my Mom, who asked to go out to a movie.  Despite the fact that the local multiplex has 12 screens, we were really scratching to find something to see.  The handful of films that I would want to see I had already seen in New York.  She doesn't get out much and hasn't seen many.  The only one that I hadn't seen that sounded worth seeing based on the description … <Read More>

I haven't gone to the movies for a bit, as nothing playing in the theaters was enticing enough to stir me out.  But I'm a sucker for sword and toga epics, so I had to see "The Eagle."  It was worth the visit, I thought. 

Channing Tatum plays a young centurion who asks to be sent to Britain for his first field command, in hopes of restoring the reputation of his family after his father, … <Read More>

This film seems to have come and almost gone rather quickly and, unfortunately, not enough people who need to see it will get a chance or be motivated to do so.  It is a dramatization of the story of Joseph Wilson IV and Valerie Plame, told from the point of view of their books about the incidents involved, and it contains important messages that every American citizen needs to hear – not least because of … <Read More>