In a movie where flying metal meets flying metaphors, “Iron Man 3” is like rooting for a good hammer. Billionaire playboy industrialist Tony Stark makes it possible to pilot a fleet of Iron Man outfits by remote control, while he munches In’N’Out burgers miles away. “Iron Man” has become “Iron Drone.” The real metaphor here is the empty suit. Among the faithful, that change won’t lead to tears for teenage theater hands to soak

Sean Dunne's new documentary “Oxyana” was awarded a Special Jury Prize at the last Tribeca Film Festival, and it's easy to see why. Capitalizing on the current rage over oddball slice-of-life docs (see “The Queen of Versailles,”etc.), Dunne's straightforward portrait of a desolate West Virginia mining town ravaged by prescription drug abuse (Oceana, West Virginia, nicknamed “Oxyana” because of its Oxycontin problem) hits the right notes to ensure big indie success. He chooses a provocative topic, adeptly balances

If charming were a category at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, “The Pretty One” would be at the top of its list. The fact that the film could attain that term after overcoming an early, tragic event vital to the film's plot is a testament to the performances within. Any one genre is difficult to explore but “The Pretty One” manages to incorporate several. According to the film’s director, AFI graduate Jenee LaMarque, who

I recently caught up with Sharon Badal, Short Film Programmer of the Tribeca Festival, and what I learned in thirty minutes could land dozens of books on “How to Make Short Films” in the recycle bin. Sharon's information about this underrated and experimental format, which has long been a filmmaker’s stepping stone, both confirmed some festival dos and donts and disproved some long-held theories about the short film submission process. For instance, Tribeca loves comedies

Those who prefer their accidental-murderer-with-a-guilty-conscience stories to be brooding and inconclusive will get a kick out of “Whitewash,” the more-or-less one-man dark comedy from Canada, starring Thomas Haden Church, and the small-scale Irish drama “What Richard Did,” both currently showing at the Tribeca Film Festival. Set in remote stretches of wintry Northern Quebec, Emanuel Hoss-

Here’s a topic for sitting around the campfire: are the worst films by the best directors still better than 80% of what is released? Are say, "Bringing Out the Dead" or "The Hudsucker Proxy" still relative carrots for the eyes when compared to the "Transformer" movies? Terrence Malick’s "To the Wonder" is a lot more "The Prairie Home Companion" than "McCabe and Mrs. Miller." Following in the wake of his towering

Those expecting a traditional rock documentary on The National, mapping the heralded Brooklyn indie rock band’s trajectory from its shaky origins in 1999 to its gradual breakthrough as rock stars, will be sorely disappointed by “Mistaken for Strangers,” directed by National frontman Matt Berninger’s nine-years-younger brother, Tom Berninger. The film opened the Tribeca Film Festival on Wednesday night. Not that there isn’t