Hany Abu-Assad’s “Omar” is nominated for an Academy Award, as was the Palestinian director’s film “Paradise Now,” also about life in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The film again brings sharply into focus the indignities large and small suffered by Palestinians on a daily basis. With the intensity of youth, baker Omar and his friends learn to bear the unbearable but also find ways around strictures. A graffiti-covered wall stands as constant

[jwplayer config=”Default-Post-Player” mediaid=”18500″]

It’s never too late to change who you are—however difficult that may be. Such is the rallying cry of Jason Cohen’s short "Facing Fear" (this documentary has been nominated in the "Best Documentary Short" category at this year's Academy Awards). Tim Zaal savagely attacked, along with fourteen other punk rock Neo-Nazis, Matthew Boger, a boy recently thrown out of his house for being gay. Twenty-five years later, Matthew Boger, now manager at the Museum of Tolerance

Right after World War II Jimmy Picard (Benicio Del Toro), a Blackfoot Indian who fought in France, is admitted to a military hospital in Topeka, Kansas. The institution is specialized in brain diseases and Jimmy Picard suffers from many problems : dizziness, temporary blindness, and hearing loss (a case of post-traumatic stress disorder?). In the absence of physiological causes, he’s given a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

Even a cursory glance at the numerous articles following the death, at age 85, of Shirley Temple Black reveals a fact we may not have known: America’s sweetheart was an actual sweetheart. Witness the following: despite her fame, which made it impossible for her to have a normal child’s life, she never felt entitled. Unlike today’s child stars or children of stars—the ones with the very memorable first names, the super-fly hairdoes and

Actor Shia LaBeouf cannot handle Germany's climate--there's something in the air there and it's gone to his head. At the Berlinale, which ends tomorrow, he's shown up at his film's premiere wearing a paper bag (which reads "I'm not famous anymore") over his head (while wearing a tuxedo, no less) and stormed out of a press conference after dribbling some nonsense about sardines and trawling. And then there's that L.A. performance art project

[jwplayer config=”Default-Post-Player” mediaid=”18431″]