Charisma and chemistry can go very far, as evidenced by the recent viral video of “Scenes from a Marriage” stars Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain on the Venice Film Festival red carpet. Isaac turning those smoldering eyes on Chastain, holding her gaze, and kissing the inside of her arm? No amount of traditional marketing for…

It’s that time of year again! The Toronto Film Festival kicks off tomorrow, September 9th, 2021, amidst waves of concerns over the pandemic and virtual access to a festival that doesn’t really seem like it’s going to be all that virtual. The 2021 edition of TIFF seems to have one foot in a precautionary state…

Hagai Levi knows that he’s on sacred ground. When it was announced that the creator of the original version of “In Treatment” as well as Showtime’s acclaimed “The Affair” would be remaking Ingmar Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage,” purists gasped. And they nearly fainted when it was revealed that much of Levi’s take would gender…

“The Wire”’s Omar Little was the most memorable character on one of the greatest shows in the history of television. The actor who played him, Michael Kenneth Williams, was also one of the best and most versatile character actors of this—or any—generation. Neither of these statements are hyperbole; a glance at his over one hundred…

What happens in Frédéric Da’s “Ava’s Dating A Senior!” is nothing earth-shattering. Unless of course, you vividly remember the days when you found out that someone you like is dating someone else, someone much higher up on the social ladder than yourself. Older, better looking, and more popular. Everything you’re not. It’s even worse when…

When Film Forum ran a retrospective of Mikio Naruse films in 2005, there was a trailer for a 1960 Claude Sautet movie called “Classe Tous Risques” that ran before each rare Naruse showing, and every time I saw it played there was a stir in the audience, audibly female, whenever Jean-Paul Belmondo came on screen.…