John Petrakis

Jacob Aaron Estes’s debut feature is being marketed as a Columbine-era fable about a bully who gets his comeuppance. But the film works on levels far more precipitous and challenging.

Seventeen-year-old Maria is a pretty Colombian girl frustrated with life in her small town....

The news that director Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs) was making a new version of the 1962 cold-war thriller The Manchurian Candidate provoked howls of protest from purists...

Since bursting onto the national scene in 1989 with his celebrated documentary Roger & Me, Michael Moore has gone from being that goofy overweight filmmaker in tennis shoes and a ...

The summer blockbuster Troy is neither as bad as it might be nor as stirring as it should be....

Those who have seen Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark know that Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier tends to focus on issues of sacrifice and forgiveness, especially involving wom...

The genteel French film Monsieur Ibrahim, directed by François Dupeyron, is based on the book Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran, by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, who also coscrip...

In the 1927 silent version of The King of Kings, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, Christ is first seen from the point of view of a blind man regaining his sight....

Robert S....

Before the advent of drug traffickers and serial killers, films often focused on conflicts over real estate....

With a trio of photogenic stars, a top-shelf crew and outstanding writer-director Anthony Minghella on board, Cold Mountain tries valiantly to match the epic sweep of Char...

Dating back to his "man with no name" westerns and including his recurring role as Dirty Harry Callahan, Clint Eastwood has embraced projects that rely on his own version of the three R's: remorse,...

The title of Philip Roth's 2000 novel, The Human Stain, suggests something left behind unwillingly, something to regret, even something to be ashamed of....

One of the most satisfying films of the year, Niki Caro's Whale Rider, is set in a small Maori village on New Zealand's eastern shore....

In Christian tradition Mary Magdalene came to symbolize (without much biblical support)  the fallen woman who repents....

Some movies like to stick their toe in the stream of allegory. Northfork jumps right in....

Good documentaries re­veal the truth. Better documentaries ask, What is truth?...

Merging a love story with a political thriller is a daunting challenge for a filmmaker....

With The Shape of Things, filmmaker Neil LaBute returns to his earlier status as a "nasty piece of work." After taking a moral hiatus to direct the uneven black comedy Nurse Betty...

When are religious leaders obligated to speak out against tyranny and atrocities? When is it prudent for them to keep silent so they can fight another day?...