Documentary filmmaker Kirby Dick has given us provocative exposés on the theme of institutionalized hypocrisy before. He set his sights on the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal in Twist of Faith (2004) and the double standards of the MPAA in This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006).... Read more

If he were alive today, Henry Ford might be one of the few who could watch Food, Inc. — a documentary by Robert Kenner about the current state of the American farm and food industry — with a smile on his face. The father of the assembly line was expected to inherit his dad’s Michigan farm, but he fled the fields to pioneer the techniques that eventually spawned what we now refer to as “agribusiness.”... Read more

The best thing about Woody Allen’s latest movie is its title. It sums up the crochety philosophy of protagonist Boris Yellnikoff (Larry David, obviously standing in for Allen himself), who’s had it up to here with moralists and utopians from Christ to Karl Marx. In a chaotic world full of flawed people, he proclaims, the best we can do is “Whatever works … as long as you don’t hurt anybody.”... Read more

Michael Mann is far from the first filmmaker to explore the concept of a legendary American law breaker as proto-celebrity. Public Enemies invites comparison to two motion pictures in particular — Arthur Penn’s 1967 milestone Bonnie and Clyde and Andrew Dominik’s 2007 masterwork The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.... Read more

Tearjerker movies are like horror flicks in that they can yank a visceral reaction even from people who hate the genre. Nobody laughs at a bad comedy, but tender souls hide under their seats during Saw V, and cynics often admit they cried during a “weepie” like My Sister’s Keeper, though they claim they despised every manipulative second. “I couldn’t help it!” they protest. “It was about a kid with cancer!”... Read more

You’ve got to give director Sam Mendes credit: He does not make the same movie twice. Perhaps because he’s British, he is endlessly fascinated by the American experience, and in particular by what goes on behind the closed doors of American couples and families.... Read more

Summer is when Hollywood pulls out all the stops to get us back indoors. When you’re constantly being offered the biggest explosions, the wildest laughs, the hottest stars and the most state-of-the-art effects, it’s hard not to feel like a supermodel being courted by a billionaire. But for us here in Vermont, summer is also when not-so-commercial independent films trickle into theaters. Often they’re here one week and gone the next, to pop up a month later on DVD.... Read more

Harold Ramis once upon a time embodied hip, cutting-edge film comedy. As a writer and director, he presided over a golden age that spanned Meatballs, Caddyshack, Animal House, Stripes and Ghostbusters.... Read more

Back in the 1970s, New Yorkers could perhaps be forgiven for thinking they were at the center of the universe. Half the films released in those days seemed to take place in the Big Apple — and they weren’t filmed in Montréal or Toronto. Watching Dog Day Afternoon, Midnight Cowboy or Taxi Driver is like taking a dip in the murky waters of rude, riotous pre-Giuliani Manhattan.... Read more

As I watched Steven Soderbergh’s latest, I couldn’t help thinking back to John Lennon’s Instant Karma for a variety of reasons. The principle one involves the no-nonsense, no-frills expedience with which each work of art was created. Lennon recorded the song the day he composed it and had it in record stores less than a week and a half later. “I wrote it for breakfast, recorded it for lunch and we’re putting it out for dinner,” he joked.... Read more