The New York-based INDEPENDENT FILM PROJECT, an incubator for indie-minded [...]

In college I wrote a paper on the subversion of the detective novel in Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49. I got an A, although the paper received its highest compliment in 2009. That’s when Pynchon finally lived up to my astonishing insight and published a detective novel, “Inherent vice.” This survey of Los Angeles weirdness circa 1970 is brought to the screen by Paul Thomas Anderson. The Crying of Lot 49 features suburban housewife Oedipa Maas

"Effie Gray" is a 2012 British biographical drama film directed by Richard Laxton, released in 2014 in the U.K. The film's release was delayed by several lawsuits that alleged that the script, written by Emma Thompson, was plagiarised from earlier dramatizations of the same story (Thompson won the suit). The subject of "Effie" is the love triangle involving Victorian art critic John Ruskin (played by Greg Wise), his wife, Euphemia "Effie"

Even though she was born in Malmö, Sweden on September 29, 1931, Anita Ekberg was an Italian actress. She had become a star elsewhere first but it was in Rome that her marquee lights flared. She was a living, breathing representation of cinema that drove both men and women, avowed cinephiles as well as Sunday movie-goers, crazy. And it is Rome, too, that Ekberg would call home ever since the fifties, never returning to her

Sean Penn, there’s an actor with range. This time around, [...]

“Song of the sea” is a spectacular film that explores the Celtic myth of Selkies, a mystical being that can change form between human and seal, through a simply-told and heartwarming story about a brother and a sister. “Song,” a traditionally-animated film, is also a visual feat. And despite a few moments in which the visual eclipses the story “Song” is a successful continuation of animation storytelling. The film, by director Tomm

A no-fail winning combination in film would be great actors+great director+good story. You think ? Not necessarily. Hollywood dustbins are filled with disappointing films made according to this very combination. Still, Tim Burton bringing together Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz in a true tale involving a kitsch painter and a charming con artist, with the backdrop of fifties and sixties San Francisco, the lure is irresistible. And the rewards many.