My Courses

A modern American master, James Gray makes richly textured, near-operatically expressive melodramas that swirl together history and myth in the realm of the personal.  The roots of his uniquely classical style of filmmaking—at once exquisitely controlled and emotionally intense—reach back to his native New York and into his family’s Russian-Jewish immigrant past, exploring the tragic…

SXSW has long been the fun cousin to the Sundance Film Festival–a music and tech fest all rolled into one, set in the sun-soaked climes of Austin, TX in the springtime, rather than the stifling cold and thin air of Park City, Utah. This year’s fest left a lot to be desired, at least politically…

“Sing Sing” is perfectly timed. As I file this, social media users are normalizing ignorance and incuriosity for clout, and characterizing anyone who is interested in art that they don’t already know they like as “pretentious,” or claiming they faking their enjoyment of it. It’s as if they’re trying to shame others for wanting to expand their…

The Australian actor Simon Baker has spent a good portion of his career in Hollywood, in amiable lead roles on television and mostly amiable second leads in film. He often sports a slightly unruly mop of sandy hair, which helps put across the aforementioned amiability. The now 54-year-old performer has very short-cropped hair in “Limbo,”…

“On the island of Manhattan there are two detective squads dedicated to homicides: Manhattan North and Manhattan South. They investigate the most brutal and difficult murders.” You can almost hear the classic “Law & Order” boom-boom sound at the end of that on-screen intro to Netflix’s “Homicide: New York,” a five-part docuseries from Dick Wolf…