Movie director Robert Altman (1925-2006) was an original. Casting an astute and acerbic eye on American society, he was the antithesis of the conventional Hollywood filmmaker. The Toronto International Film Festival’s Bell Lightbox is presenting a retrospective on this fairly prolific auteur. Company Man: The Best of Robert Altman will run from Aug. 7-31. Ron […]
A few hours before a 72-hour humanitarian truce in the Gaza war was supposed to start, followed immediately by talks in Cairo with the aim of achieving a more durable ceasefire, White House spokesman Josh Earnest scolded Israel. An Israeli artillery strike that had mistakenly hit a United Nations school in Gaza, causing 15 fatalities, […]
Woody Allen bores into the mystery of the occult and revels in the passion of love in his latest film, Magic in the Moonlight, set mainly on the French Riviera in 1928. A romantic comedy enlivened by scenic backdrops, opulent sets, imaginative costume design, magical tricks, chicanery galore and a great musical score, it’s one […]
More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the current war between Israel and Hamas, the third in six years. As the Canadian branch of Amnesty International notes, Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip have borne the brunt of the fighting. While innocent Palestinians die needlessly, their homes and businesses pulverized, Hamas leaders and […]
Amid the acrimonious charges and counter-charges they’ve hurled at each other since the war in the Gaza Strip erupted 19 days ago, Israel and its arch enemy, Hamas, concur on one salient point: Neither side wants to return to the status quo ante that prevailed before Israel launched Operation Protective Edge on July 8. What […]
Shimon Peres, one of the last members of Israel’s founding generation, vacated his position as Israeli president on July 24 after an illustrious six-decade career as a politician, statesman and civil servant. He stepped down as Israel continued to wage its third war against Hamas in six years. Typically, he was in the thick […]
The latest war in the Gaza Strip, the third since 2008 pitting Israel against Hamas, has unleashed a disheartening and disgusting torrent of antisemitism in Europe, where the Holocaust unfolded in all its unprecedented horror. In the Paris suburb of Auilnay-sous-Bois, on July 11, unknown assailants hurled a Molotov cocktail at a synagogue. Two days […]
I‘ve read The New York Times for many years now and consider it a great newspaper. Daniel Schwartz, the author of End Times? Crises and Turmoil at The New York Times (State University of New York Press), concurs. “I believe the Times is still the best and most influential newspaper in the world,” he writes […]
It’s a mall with a difference. The Manufactura Center, a sprawling complex of bright red brick buildings in the heart of the Polish city of Lodz, looks a lot like any sleek shopping mall in North America or Europe. Set on 27 hectares at the corner of Zachodnia and Ogrodowa streets, this modern mall has […]
On July 18, two days before the deadline for reaching a permanent agreement on the future of Iran’s controversial nuclear program was due to expire, six major powers and Iran agreed to extend the talks by four months to Nov. 24, matching the day an interim accord was signed in Geneva in 2013. In commenting […]