In 1920s Japan, young Jiro Horikoshi dreams of building planes and heads to an engineering school in Tokyo; his work will also take him to Nazi Germany… What was originally called Hayao Miyazaki’s last film before retiring is not for children, but an animated biography of the man who built the fighter planes that Japan … Continue reading The Wind Rises
ARE YOU READY TO MEET AUGGIE PULLMAN? After being homeschooled for years because of a rare condition that has deformed his face, fifth-grader ”Auggie” Pullman (Jacob Tremblay) goes to school in a regular class for the first time. On paper, this may look like another tearjerker, a predictable story about a bullied kid. But in … Continue reading Wonder
NOTHING’S IMPOSSIBLE. In 1870s Poland, 17-year-old Yentl (Barbra Streisand) leaves her community and disguises herself as a boy in order to be allowed as a student at a yeshiva… but there are complications. Isaac Bashevis Singer was unhappy with this musical adaptation of his story, but making it was a decade-long dream for Streisand who … Continue reading Yentl
THE PASSION, THE VIOLENCE, THE BIRTH OF AMERICA’S GILDED AGE. In the early 1900s, a well-to-do family in New Rochelle, New York agrees to care for an abandoned black baby that, it turns out, belongs to a washwoman; later, the stubbornly proud father (Howard E. Rollins, Jr.) makes himself known. Adapting E.L. Doctorow’s sprawling novel … Continue reading Ragtime
IT’S AS REAL AS THE FEELINGS YOU FEEL. Once upon a time there was a Princess Buttercup (Robin Wright) who was kidnapped, but two men set out for her – her husband the Prince (Chris Sarandon) and a masked pirate (Cary Elwes) who just may be her true love. Updating fairy tales is a task fraught … Continue reading The Princess Bride
