Ralph Fiennes As You’ve Never Seen Him in ‘A Bigger Splash’
May15

Ralph Fiennes As You’ve Never Seen Him in ‘A Bigger Splash’

An ailing rock star and her supportive yet mysterious boyfriend make love in a sumptuous home on an Italian island. But their sun-dappled idyll is abruptly interrupted when the star’s old record producer – an old flame – arrives with his daughter in tow, forcibly ushering in a blast from the past from which there can be no return. That is the scenario for director Luca Guadagnino’s “A Bigger Splash,” which features the enigmatic Tilda...

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A Piece of Janis Joplin’s Heart in ‘Little Girl Blue’
May03

A Piece of Janis Joplin’s Heart in ‘Little Girl Blue’

The recent death of Prince sparked a revelation for director Amy Berg, who just spent eight years immersed in the life of another musical legend, Janis Joplin, culminating in the feature documentary “Janis: Little Girl Blue,” which she also wrote and produced.   Flash back to the fall of 1970. Less than three weeks after Jimi Hendrix died, the world mourned another drug overdose death of a larger-than-life musician, the...

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‘City of Gold’ a Glittery Look at LA’s Food Scene from its Top Critic

Rarely have the city of Los Angeles and surrounding Southern California environments looked so delicious as they do in “City of Gold,” a documentary following Pulitzer prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold as he traverses the area’s culinary culture in his big, black Dodge pickup truck. With his byline in the Los Angeles Times, Gold has single-handedly changed the face of restaurant criticism by uncovering the city’s undiscovered...

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‘Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures’ a Revelatory View of an Iconic Artist
Apr04

‘Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures’ a Revelatory View of an Iconic Artist

Even as HBO’s “Vinyl” presents a fictionalized look at the music and drug scene in New York in the 1970s, its new  feature-length documentary “Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures” presents the real world art, gay and drug scene of the era as it delves inside the life and times of the controversial photographer whose work continues to resonate decades after his death. The title of the film is a quote from the ultraconservative Sen....

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Amid All the Oscar Controversies, Women in Film Toasts Excellence
Feb28

Amid All the Oscar Controversies, Women in Film Toasts Excellence

While it obviously wasn’t a great year for diversity at the Oscars– for the second year in a row – women actually made some gains.   So it was through that lens that the 51 female nominees for the 88th annual Academy Awards–out of a list of more than 200 and up from 44 last year—were feted at the Ninth Annual Women In Film Pre-Oscar Cocktail Party.   Presented by MaxMara, BMW, Tiffany & Co., M·A·C Cosmetics...

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