It’s been an interesting few months for history on film. A series of releases have raised the ever-present question of historical depiction. One film, "Zero Dark Thirty," was threatened with Congressional investigations over its portrayal of torture. "Argo" takes vast liberties with the Iranian hostage crisis, but no one except the Iranians seems to mind. No film is quite as dependent on history as "Emperor," a serviceable feature film that

Ramona Diaz’s Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey is the story of Arnel Pineda, the Filipino singing prodigy who at age forty was plucked from total obscurity in his native Manila and recruited to join his all-time favorite band Journey. In quick-cut, high-gloss concert video fashion, Diaz takes us through Pineda’s gradual emergence from spastic, shaky newcomer to certified rock god all while maintaining his modest appeal. Fragile and

All told, no other conflict has been committed to film more than the Israelo-Palestinian one. This glut of images in a way characterizes "5 broken cameras," a documentaries-within-the-documentary produced over a period of five years by a Palestinian amateur which may yet earn the best nod a filmmaker could hope for, this weekend. The son of a peasant, a gardener and farmer, Emad Burnat lives in the village of Bil'in in the West Bank.

Poor Jason Bateman. Nothing good ever happens to him. He doesn’t get to be Seth Rogen dishing out one liners. His form of comedy involves being the average guy taking abuse – punches, stomps, bites, and the rest of it. No one takes a kick to the groin quite like Jason Bateman. He’s a little like a modern Jack Lemmon, the normal man beset by his circumstances. In “Identity Thief “– aside from the obvious theft of his identity – he suffers throat

The last of the snow around Potsdamer Platz has melted in time for the 63rd edition of the Berlin International Film Festival. This year’s opening film, from festival jury president Wong Kar-Wai (pictured at left), was the big-budget Kung Fu epic "The Grandmaster," shown here in its world premiere a month after opening in China. Expectations ran high for the arthouse auteur’s first martial arts outing, not to mention

In addition to being his supposedly last theatrical film director Steven Soderbergh, for a while, would have you believe “Side Effects” could be his best—a complex thriller about psychiatric drugs—only to lose its focus almost entirely and make you wish screenwriter Scott Z. Burns took a shot of Ritalin. Martin and Emily (Channing Tatum and Rooney Mara) are a New York couple with issues. He has just been released from prison for insider

The 63rd edition of the Berlinale will open tomorrow Thursday evening for ten days. And like every year, it’s the diversity of the films on hand which makes this festival remarkable. More than 400 titles will be screened, including big-budget Hollywood movies and a slew of European films (including several first features) addressing controversial contemporary issues like homosexuality within the Catholic Church or land