There are a few film directors whose appeal splits people right down the middle. Some hate the work and some are devoted groupies. However, if the response to a particular director bridges the entire spectrum, then it is all the proof needed that this talented film artist's sensibility cannot be ignored. For myself, always a sucker for the sweeping operatic gesture in film, I find myself to be a disciple of the British director Ken Russell. Russell did not think small in hi...

Friday, March 6---------The celebrated documentary VALENTINO: THE LAST EMPEROR will kick off festivities at the 26th Miami International Film Festival, with a special screening this evening at the historic Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, the Spanish-style art deco movie palace in downtown Miami. The film chronicles the life and career of Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani as he wraps up his celebrated 50 year career as the guru of international fashion. The last...

As one festival closes, another one begins…..such is the film season in New York. The venerable New York Film Festival ended this past Sunday, after an impressive array of film talents presented their films on the glorious screen of the Ziegfield Theater, the city’s largest single-screen establishment (a vestige of cinema’s past glory). After taking a breath for only two solitary days, the cinema action begins anew, this time about 100 miles to the east of the great metropolis, in the idyl...

  Wedneday, October 15---------As one festival closes, another one begins…..such is the film season in New York. The venerable New York Film Festival ended this past Sunday, after an impressive array of film talents presented their films on the glorious screen of the Ziegfield Theater, the city’s largest single-screen establishment (a vestige of cinema’s past glory). After taking a breath for only two solitary days, the cinema action begins anew, this time about 100 miles to ...