Saturday, December 30-----For Westchester County film buffs, and intrepid New Yorkers not adverse to going off-island, the Jacob Burns Film Center is a distinctive cultural resource in the heart of New York’s northern suburbs. For the past five years, the Film Center has offered a serious alternative to the megaplex monotony of film theaters outside of Manhattan, with unique special programs and the best of independent and international cinema. This is clearly evident in just the first we...

Sixty-one years ago, US and Japanese armies met on Iwo Jima. Decades later, several hundred letters are unearthed from that stark island’s soil. The letters give faces and voices to the men who fought there, as well as the extraordinary general who led them. The Japanese soldiers are sent to Iwo Jima knowing that in all probability they will not come back. Among them are Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya), a baker who wants only to live to see the face of his newborn daughter; Baron Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ih...

And so we're off....the first major national critics association has announced their Top Ten Titles of the year, as well as honoring individual films and performances. In a very unexpected and in some ways alarming choice, the National Board of Review has chosen as Best Picture the Japanese-language film LETTERS OF IWO JIMA, a companion film to the much bigger budgeted FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, both directed by Clint Eastwood. It is a sign of Eastwood's clout at his home studio Warner Brothers that ...

Friday, December 8-----And so we're off....the first major national critics association has announced their Top Ten Titles of the year, as well as honoring individual films and performances. In a very unexpected and in some ways alarming choice, the National Board of Review has chosen as Best Picture the Japanese-language film LETTERS OF IWO JIMA, a companion film to the much bigger budgeted FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, both directed by Clint Eastwood. It is a sign of Eastwood's clout at his home st...