Real-life Carlos, a Venezuelan citizen and a convert to Islam, has said: "From now on terrorism is going to be more or less a daily part of the landscape of your rotting democracies." Whatever shadows lingered in my mind about his life before seeing “Carlos” still exist tonight. To me, people like Carlos are first and foremost products of the era they were born in, with the particularity that people like Carlos had a utopic bent to boot and a family background that would naturally orient him towards political activism. And yet, none of this begins to explain why Carlos became Carlos.

By ALI NADERZAD – September 30, 2010 After Tony Curtis [...]

By ALI NADERZAD – September 28, 2010 DVD sales are [...]

In You will meet a tall dark stranger coming out [...]

By ALI NADERZAD – September 17, 2010 There are two [...]

In a noted moment of chutzpah the Italian press, led by Paolo Mereghetti (pictured), has been up in arms about the American raid on the most consequential awards at the Venice Biennale with Sofia Coppola winning for “Somewhere” and Monte Hellman for “Road to nowhere.”

I admit, I knew that neither film was a shoo-in for the top nods, especially with the wealth of prime cinema on the Lido this year. Coppola, who was previously in a relationship with jury president Quentin Tarantino, makes watchable movies but is often afraid of scratching beyond the surface; characters sometimes appear smaller under her microscope. Monte Hellman was an early mentor of Tarantino's (video store geekdom oblige) whose place in cinema history next to Roger Corman is secure--as a cult-movies director.

By ALI NADERZAD – September 12, 2010 The man with [...]