the traveler's resource guide to festivals & films
a FestivalTravelNetwork.com site
part of Insider Media llc.
Connect with us:
Reviews
January '26 Digital Week III
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 30 January 2026 01:43
- Written by Kevin Filipski
In-Theater Releases of the Week
Arco
(Neon)
French director Ugo Bienvenu makes his feature debut with this charming and touching animated feature about a young boy, Arco, who time-travels from the year 2932 back to 2075, where he meets a like-minded young girl, Iris, who becomes his only friend. Their adventures—which include outsmarting a trio of comically dumb conspiracy theorists hot on their trail along with robotic thugs—are reminiscent of E.T.’s friendship with Elliott, but Bienvenu smartly keeps the focus on the children’s burgeoning relationship even as he fills in the details of an antiseptic future world of environmental catastrophes, with an eye-popping color scheme that visualizes hope amid hopelessness.
The English-language dub features co-producer Natalie Portman and Mark Ruffalo as Iris’ parents, with Will Farrell, Andy Samberg and Flea hamming it up as the dastardly trio.
(Roadside Attractions)
Claire Foy’s emotionally raw portrayal of Helen Macdonald, dealing with beloved father (and famous press photographer) Alisdair’s sudden death, is the centerpiece of Philippa Lowthorpe’s lacerating adaptation of Macdonald’s memoir—for which Lowthorpe cowrote the script with Emma Donoghue—that explores how obtaining a goshawk to help the grieving process became the focal point that allowed Helen to pick up the emotional pieces.
There are mawkish moments when Helen flashes back to dad (played with his usual charm and humor by Brendan Gleeson) and mom (the always reliable Lindsay Duncan), but Foy’s stoicism and the unforgettable goshawk (actually several) are highlights.
4K/UHD Release of the Week
One Battle After Another
(Warner Bros)
Each Paul Thomas Anderson film is treated as an Event, but his latest magnum opus cobbles together themes and characters he’s worked on for decades—this loose adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland is a flashy, convoluted, crude and cartoonish take on an America comprising left-wing terrorists and right-wing authoritarians. There’s some good material here, but Anderson throws everything against the wall to see what will stick, resulting in a tonally unbalanced and unwieldy 160 minutes. The acting is all over the map—Leonardo DiCaprio’s wild-eyed terrorist hero stops just short of caricature, while Teyana Taylor and Chase Infiniti are solid if unspectacular as his wife and daughter, both of whom however (especially Taylor) are shortchanged by the script.
Then there’s Sean Penn’s villainous Colonel Lockjaw—a failed attempt to channel Dr. Strangelove’s Jack D. Ripper and General Turgidson—a wincingly embarrassing performance that’s likely the worst of a storied career. Anderson’s bombast reaches its nadir when he kills off Lockjaw three times in a couple of dragged-out, pedestrian sequences that add nothing to an already overstuffed vehicle. Finally, the less said about Jonny Greenwood’s typically excessive score—whose rhythmic drive is more repetitious than tense—the better. At least the film looks eye-popping in 4K.
Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project No. 5
(Criterion)
In the latest volume of this valuable series, four international films have been painstakingly restored and are available in all their visual glory: Indian director G. Aravindan’s lovely children’s tale Kummatty (1977) and Burkinabè director Idrissa Ouédraogo’s impressive feature debut Yam Dabbo (1986) are small-scale gems.
But the standouts are two historical epics: Algerian master Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina’s devastating chronicle of the road from colonialism to revolution in his home country, Chronicle of the Years of Fire (1975); and Kazakhstani director Ardak Amirkulov’s complex dramatization of a decisive 13th-century battle involving Genghis Kahn, The Fall of Otrar (1991). All four films look spectacular on Blu; extras comprise short Scorsese intros for and retrospective featurettes about each of the films.
Streaming Releases of the Week
The Hell of Auschwitz—Maus by Art Spiegelman
(Icarus Films)
When Art Spiegelman created Maus—his comic-book recounting of his father’s memories of Auschwitz, with the Jews drawn as mice, the Nazis as cats and the Polish people as pigs—he also created a sensation, some accusing him of trivializing the Holocaust while many others praising the power of his artistry and storytelling.
Now, decades later, French director Pauline Horovitz—who herself is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors—brings in other voices (including Horovitz’s son, who is not as shaken after reading the book as she was) to explore the notion of “the second generation,” those who came after the actual survivors and were subjected to either silence or denial. (A segment about French students being shown Alain Resnais’ shattering documentary Night and Fog in classrooms is as powerful as anything about Spiegelman’s seminal graphic novel.)
(Netflix)
In this wispy, lyrical drama, director Clint Bentley cribs from Terrence Malick (as does Chloe Zhao with Hamnet, another best picture Oscar contender) to tell the story of Robert Grainier, a rugged frontiersman, whose long life is shaped by tragedies writ large and small, personal and expansive—in other words, it’s an allegory for American expansionism.
Based on a novel by Denis Johnson, Bentley’s film is beautifully shot (by Adolpho Veloso), with an attention to naturalistic details that would make Malick proud—although the third-person narration seems an almost willful rejection of Malick’s subjective first-person voiceovers—but its stillness is contrived, and the ending is a whimper that thinks it’s a bang. Joel Edgerton makes a properly haggard Robert, but Felicity Jones and Kerry Condon are wasted as the women in his life.
CD Release of the Week
The Warning—Error Deluxe Edition
(Lava/Republic Records)
The Mexican hard-rock trio the Warning—comprising sisters Daniela (guitar, vocals), Paulina (drums, vocals) and Alejandra (bass, backing vocals) Villarreal—put out two solid albums independently while still teenagers: the 2017 debut, XXI Century Blood, is the best Green Day album of the past decade, while 2018’s Queen of the Murder Scene is the best hard-rock concept album since Queensryche’s Operation: Mindcrime.
When they signed to major label Republic Records, the sisters released Error in 2022, an album about the fallout of the COVID pandemic and an exploration of what it means to be Gen Z. With hard-hitting songs like “Disciple,” “Choke,” Animosity, “Evolve” and—yes—“Z,” the trio had its finger on the pulse of a confused and confusing time. And the Warning’s second song in its native language, “Martirio,” is a sonic masterpiece, combining emotionally charged vocals, subtle instrumental interplay—listen to Alejandra’s marvelously McCartney-esque bass playing—and a brilliant arrangement to craft what remains the Warning’s best song, even after the release of its best album, Keep Me Fed, in 2024.
This so-called “deluxe edition” tacks on live versions of six songs from the band’s historic 2023 headlining shows in Mexico City, five from Error (including a powerful “Martirio”) and one from XXI Century Blood. A real deluxe edition would have included a second disc of the entire concert. There’s also an unforced error in the liner notes: nearly three pages in, the entire essay starts over: no copy editor in the house? Still, the deluxe Error should accomplish two things: introduce the band to a bigger fan base and pave the way for what should be the Warning’s fifth album later this year.
New York Jewish Film Festival 2026 Roundup
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Sunday, 25 January 2026 22:21
- Written by Kevin Filipski
New York Jewish Film Festival
Through January 28, 2026
Walter Reade Theater, Film at Lincoln Center
filmlinc.org
The 35th annual edition of the New York Jewish Film Festival—co-presented by the Jewish Museum and Film at Lincoln Center—once again presents an enticing mix of documentaries and features. Here are capsule reviews of a handful of films I saw:
 |
Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause
Charles Grodin was many things: a terrific actor onscreen and onstage; an acerbically funny talk-show guest; and an impassioned political talking-head in the early days of MSNBC. All that is covered more than adequately in James L. Freedman’s heartfelt documentary, which includes interviews with many of his Hollywood colleagues and friends: Robert DeNiro and Martin Brest (his Midnight Run costar and director), Steve Martin, Elaine May, Martin Short, Carol Burnett, Ellen Burstyn and many others. But what’s eye-opening is Grodin’s activism for prison reform: he helped get several women who were wrongly jailed for drug offenses. There are countless hilarious film clips and appearances on Carson and Letterman, but the most poignant moments are the heartrending testimonials from the women Grodin helped release from prison.
All I Have Is Nothingness
When Claude Lanzmann died in 2018, his legacy was already cemented by his unforgettable nine-hour film Shoah, which eschewed archival Holocaust footage to instead let those who perpetrated and were victimized by the Nazi killing machine speak. Guillaume Ribot has made a valuable making-of feature using never-before-seen footage of Lanzmann meeting and ingratiating himself with several Shoah subjects and families. Lanzmann comes off as passionate, overbearing but always respectful—the perfect artist to create such a monumental work of witnessed history.
Orna and Ella
The closing of Orna and Ella, a beloved restaurant in Tel Aviv, after 25 years is recounted in this touching documentary by director Tomer Heymann, who records the final weeks leading up to the closing with sympathy and tact. We see these two graceful chefs-restauranteurs—whose intimate location was a rarity in that it made its own breads, pastas and ice cream on the premises—at the center of a bittersweet look at a beautiful personal and professional partnership.
Out of Exile: The Photography of Fred Stein
Renowned photographer Fred Stein, who grew up in Germany before fleeing Hitler and becoming famous after moving to France and America as a street portraitist and candidly capturing the likes of Albert Einstein, is the subject of this intimate documentary by his son Peter Stein and Dawn Freer. The filmmakers explore Fred’s compelling biography as well as a look at how his legacy is being handled by scholars and museum curators who are creating exhibitions of his historically important work.
Sapiro v. Ford—The Jew Who Sued Henry Ford
This little-known but important story about a Jewish lawyer and labor activist who sued Henry Ford for libel in 1927 after the racist mogul ran a smear campaign against him in his Detroit newspaper is recounted in Gaylen Ross’ enlightening documentary. Stephen Kunken engagingly recites Sapiro’s own words about his life, business and battle with Ford, while Ross effectively uses newsreel footage and Ford’s own words against him. The outcome of the suit—Ford agreed to a retraction, eventually shutting down his paper—was the first time hate speech suffered consequences in America, which up to that time had no laws governing its misuse.
Frontier
Judith Colell’s trenchant drama about the residents of a Spanish village near the French-Spanish border, who risk their lives to help Jewish refugees escape Vichy France, has very few melodramatic flourishes as it concentrates on the humanity of good people hoping for a small triumph over evil. The performances by a first-rate cast—led by Miki Esparbé as customs officer Manel, Maria Rodríguez Soto as his wife Merce, Bruna Cusí as helpful neighbor Juliana and Joren Seldeslachts as the local Nazi SS head—are superlative individually and together.
Fantasy Life (Closing Night)
Matthew Spear not only wrote and directed but also stars as Sam, a down-on-his-luck paralegal who gets a gig as a manny for a mostly invisible husband and his depressed and lonely wife, Dianne, watching their three young daughters, in this alternately amusing and enervating would-be rom-com. Although Amanda Peet is her usually winning self as Dianne, there’s nothing in Spear’s writing, directing, performance or bearing that would make anyone believe Sam would become her confidante and possibly something more.
Broadway Play Review—Jordan Harrison’s “Marjorie Prime” with June Squibb and Cynthia Nixon
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Sunday, 25 January 2026 03:14
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Marjorie Prime
Written by Jordan Harrison
Directed by Anne Kauffman
Performances through February 15, 2026
Hayes Theatre, 240 West 44th Street, New York, NY
2st.com
 |
| June Squibb in Marjorie Prime (photo: Joan Marcus) |
When Marjorie Prime premiered in 2014, A.I. was still in its speculative stage. But now, with A.I. quickly becoming an all-encompassing nightmare, the plot of Jordan Harrison’s play is now disturbingly prescient. It begins with Marjorie, an elderly widow, sitting in her modest living room talking with a friendly young man named Walter, who turns out to be Marjorie’s deceased—but AI-generated—husband, who is part of a new computer program comprising what are called Primes, developed to help grieving people remember loved ones as they once were, keeping their (and the survivors’) memory alive.
Marjorie’s daughter Tess, however, hasn’t completely bought into the new technology—it does have some bugs, like a Prime not having sufficient initial knowledge to have a substantive conversation—but hopes that her octogenarian mother’s failing memory is not rattled by a long-ago tragedy that happened to Marjorie and Walter’s beloved son (which has also affected Tess’ relationship with her mother). Tess’ supportive husband Jon, for his part, feels that there’s no harm in using a Prime and it might actually help if Marjorie hears about past events she may have forgotten, however painful. The intriguing first part of Marjorie Prime explores the ethics and morality of this new technology, which goes hand in hand with these characters’ feelings of guilt and grief.
But Harrison short-circuits interest in this tantalizingly dramatic dilemma by repeating the plot device, to ever diminishing returns. Two more Primes appear following a couple of deaths; obviously, overwhelming grief makes the decisions to use Primes plausible, but since one of the deaths is so contrived—and the flimsy explanation so unpersuasive—it severely cuts into the rest of the play’s ability to insightfully explore its urgently thorny subject.
It’s also hamstrung by the shoehorning in of pop-culture touchstones from Rosemary’s Baby and My Best Friend’s Wedding to Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” (along with a mention of the Central Park installation The Gates), which is more cutesy than cutting. And the final scene shares thematic DNA with the ending of Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence, to Marjorie Prime’s detriment.
Still, there are moments that are both slyly humorous and touching, like this exchange between Marjorie and Tess, laying bare their volatile but mutually needy mother-daughter relationship:
MARJORIE Oh no.
TESS What is it? (Marjorie’s face crumples. She shakes her head.)
TESS Mom, what is it? Did you have an accident?
(Marjorie gives a small nod, eyes down, deeply ashamed.)
TESS Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.
MARJORIE I’m sorry.
TESS Don’t be sorry.
MARJORIE I’m so sorry.
TESS It’s okay—It’s Shower Day after all.
Although Michael Almereyda is far from my favorite director, his 2017 film adaptation of Marjorie Prime—starring Lois Smith, who originated the role of Marjorie in Los Angeles and Off-Broadway, along with Geena Davis, Tim Robbins and Jon Hamm—“opens up” the play in a few subtle ways, including the introduction of characters only mentioned in Harrison’s script, and ends up more memorably affecting.
Onstage, the cast—under Anne Kauffman’s sharp direction on Lee Jellinek’s simultaneously realistic and symbolic set—can’t be faulted. Christopher Lowell makes an unnervingly gentle Walter and Danny Burstein is a sympathetic Jon. As Tess, Cynthia Nixon gives a devastating portrayal of a woman trying to bury long-held grievances, while 96-year-old June Squibb plays Marjorie with an oft-humorous bemusement that’s great fun to watch. Self-inflicted flaws abound, but Marjorie Prime still provides some needed theatrical food for thought.
Juilliard Orchestra Perform Beethoven & Ravel
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 19 January 2026 14:35
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Photo by Paula Lobo, courtesy Juilliard
At Lincoln Center’s wonderful Alice Tully Hall, on the night of Monday, November 10th, I had the privilege to attend a splendid concert featuring the precocious musicians of the Juilliard Orchestra, here under the distinguished direction of Fabien Gabel.
The event started impressively with an excellent account of Ludwig van Beethoven’s magisterial Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61, from 1806, with the accomplished James Birch as soloist. There’s some eccentricity in the introduction to the initial, Allegro ma non troppo movement—it is unusually complex and ambitious—but the music quickly becomes dramatic—the primary melody is especially beautiful, even haunting. The ensuing Larghetto is solemn too, while the Rondo finale, marked Allegro, is lively, dance-like and charming.
The second half of the evening was even more memorable, if only for the sterling rendition of Maurice Ravel’s extraordinary set of orchestrations—from his marvelous piano suite—Le Tombeau de Couperin, from 1919. In useful notes on the program by violist Noémie Chemali, who received a master’s degree from Juilliard 2022, she comments thus:
As Ravel notes, this work is “directed less in fact to Couperin himself than to French music of the 18th century,” a broader invocation of the Baroque keyboard tradition that shaped French musical identity.
She adds:
The movements most directly connected to Couperin—the Forlane and Rigaudon— draw inspiration from the Concerts royeaux, while the Prélude traces back to Couperin's pedagogical treatise, L'Art de toucher le clavier. The original piano suite was completed in 1917 with four movements, including a Fugue and Toccata that Ravel ultimately excluded from the orchestrated version he completed in 1919.
The opening, exquisite Prélude is more sprightly than might be anticipated in a work written as a memorial to fallen soldiers—it ends very softly. Also surprising is the seemingly even more playful Forlane that follows, but it is, again, thoroughly bewitching, if quirky; it too finishes gently. The succeeding Menuet is more lush and yet more transparently elegiac in tone—it closes very quietly. The concluding Rigaudon is energetic and brisk in rhythm—it also has a surprisingly cheerful quality, although the middle section is more subdued and slightly mysterious, but with ludic moments; the movement ends abruptly.
The concert finished enjoyably with a satisfying reading of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s enchanting Symphony No. 39 in E-flat Major, K. 543, from 1788. The Adagio introduction to the beginning Allegro is majestic, like the movement as a whole, and its musical material recurs throughout its main body which is more dynamic and at times celebratory. It precedes an Andante con moto that too has a somewhat weighty ethos and before long becomes more impassioned, but it’s not without serene measures. The consequent Menuetto, marked Allegretto, although less somber, retains an elevated approach, but the delightful Trio section is more jovial in spirit, while the Allegro finale is exhilarating and exultant. The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.
More Articles...
Newsletter Sign Up
Upcoming Events
No Calendar Events Found or Calendar not set to Public.