Anthony Hopkins gives the performance of a lifetime in “The Father,” which is saying something for a man who has been acting professionally for more than a half-century, and who already has one Oscar to his credit. Hopkins is 83, at the top of his game, and also of the right age to infuse his character in the new film with the most assuredly correct amount of pathos and humanity, and elicit our sympathies. It’s an absolute masterpiece
Everyone’s favorite resident of a certain deep-sea pineapple is back in his first big-screen adventure since the untimely passing of SpongeBob creator Stephen Hillenburg, who succumbed to ALS in 2018. Hillenburg’s absence is felt rather keenly in “Sponge on the Run,” which was written and directed by frequent “Bob” scribe Tim Hill, as a certain magic is absent in our yellow friend’s third big-screen adventure—bowing not in theaters
Ella Blumenthal was a young woman when the Nazis invaded her native Poland. Over the next few years she was bounced around Europe by Hitler’s forces, experiencing firs-thand the horrors of Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen. She even participated in the failed Warsaw Uprising in 1943, to which the Nazis responded with a horrific crackdown that would all but level the ancient city. Blumenthal and her niece, Roma
Last January, in the before times when film festivals were still held in person, I beheld one of the most unique and powerful films I’d ever seen. Cedric Cheung-Lau’s “The Mountains Are a Dream That Calls to Me” was unlike anything I had ever seen before—or since. Filmed in Nepal, it told the profoundly simple story of a Nepalese man named Tukten (Sanjay Lama Dong) who says he is walking to a new job in the Middle East. Along his trek he meets
As we wipe our collective brow after the four-year fever that was the Trump administration, the temptation remains to call him the worst president in our history. For whatever reason, long-term amnesia has set in for the sins of previous presidencies. Lest we never forget, the new film “The Mauritanian” is here to remind us of Bush-era transgressions.
“The Mauritanian” is directed
It’s still hard to wrap my mind around the notion that a year ago I was walking the streets of Park City, interviewing filmmakers and catching the latest releases. This year, the festival, like nearly all others, has gone hybrid, with a very few in-person events as audiences and critics have enjoyed the offerings from their covid-safe couches.
Here are just a few Sundance ‘21
Bring tissues. For if you need a good ugly-cry in a still-young year that has already been filled with so much grief, “Supernova” is your movie. Which isn’t to say that this incredibly heartfelt and sad film isn’t good—far from it.
This new film from writer-director Harry Macqueen stars Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci as Sam and Tusker, longtime romantic partners in late middle age on a road trip through

