Akriti Painuly 
The seething pandemonium and brutally thrown insults of reality shows such as “Top Chef” and “Kitchen Nightmares” are happily absent from “Kitchen Brigade,” in which a talented chef trains eager amateurs with quiet hauteur, exacting shallot-slicing demands, and eventually a dash of gentleness. In the … Read more
If the title “Our Father, the Devil” seems familiar, it’s likely because the hitherto unnoticed Franco-American co-production was nominated for the Spirit Award for the best feature film in late 2022. Ellie Foumbi’s debut film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival a … Read more
The documentary “A Star Without a Star: The Untold Juanita Moore Story” by Kirk E. Kelleykahn argues that Moore, the director’s grandmother and an Oscar nominee whose career spanned eight decades, deserves a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. This 19-year labor of love … Read more
BritBox’s latest offering, Stonehouse, a political drama starring Matthew Macfadyen as a member of Parliament who faked his death in the 1970s to avoid being prosecuted for, among other things, bad business dealings and taking money from the Czech government to serve as a spy, … Read more
The drama series Bloodline, which premiered on Netflix on February 9, 2015, was a major success. The cast included Oscar nominee Sam Shepard and Oscar winner Sissy Spacek as Robert and Sally Rayburn, respectively, of the Rayburn family. In Bloodline, the couple had four children: … Read more
The intimate, award-winning drama “Cinema Sabaya” was Israel’s nomination for the international feature Oscar. It is one of the country’s very few films centered on collaboration between Jews and Arabs. It focuses on a video workshop in which eight women, four Jewish and four Muslim, … Read more
What normally comes to mind when the term “thriller” is used to describe a movie? A robbery of some sort? Car Pursuit? Murder? Possibly some screaming matches for good measure? All of these are simple and easy methods that thrillers tell the audience that what … Read more
The Bubble is Judd Apatow’s first screenplay and directorial effort since The King of Staten Island in 2020. He returns with another excellent cast, but the material lacks any comic value whatsoever. The Bubble attempts to find humor in the early days of the COVID-19 … Read more
Don’t Look Up is a highly enjoyable guilty pleasure film with an underlying message. Adam McKay enlists a large ensemble cast, headlined by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, for his climate change social satire film. Don’t Look Up takes on a bit more than it … Read more
The compelling contemporary drama “Harka” is set more than a decade after the start of Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution, yet its frustrated outsider protagonist must try to make his way in circumstances similar to those of Mohamed Bouazizi, the 27-year-old street vendor whose self-immolation sparked that … Read more