There was a time not that long ago when controversial documentaries like Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” (2004), about the Bush…
James Greenberg
James Greenberg was formerly editor in chief of the DGA Quarterly, the craft journal of the Directors Guild of America. He was film critic for Los Angeles magazine and has written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New Yorker and Entertainment Weekly. He started his career as a critic and reporter for Daily Variety. He is author of Roman Polanski: A Retrospective (Abrams), the only book of its kind that Polanski has ever participated in.
I had real trepidations about seeing “A Complete Unknown,” James Mangold’s painstaking rendering of Bob Dylan’s arrival on the folk…
Director Agnieska Holland comes from the generation of post-war filmmakers who grew up under a totalitarian regime in Poland. The…
Everyone obviously has a different idea of what constitutes a perfect day, but it is unlikely that anyone other than…
Chances are that at some point in your youth a Godzilla film scared the hell out of you. From the…
The past lives referred to in writer/director Celine Song’s emotionally complex and delicate debut feature, “Past Lives,” are not only…
More than thirty-five years after Robert Townsend’s groundbreaking film “Hollywood Shuffle” parodied the roles open to Black actors in Hollywood—pimps,…
It’s an idyllic summer day. A family is picnicking by a rustic lake amidst the sites and sounds of nature,…
With so much to laugh—and cry—about in today’s topsy-turvy world, the challenge of directing a social comedy in 2022 is…
For whatever reason, 2022 has been the year of directors reflecting on how they got their start as filmmakers. Perhaps…
When Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” came out in 1985, the author said that the violence against women…
George Bernard Shaw said, “Life is not about finding yourself. It’s about creating yourself.” American Artists understand this perhaps better…
At a time of widespread gender confusion, there is no ambiguity about writer/director Jane Campion’s view of toxic masculinity. It…
Creating an emotionally compelling documentary from material with an already well-known ending depends on the skill and commitment of the…