I spoke with filmmaker Leslie Tai about her new documentary, How to Have an American Baby (now streaming on PBS) which follows the fortunes and tragedies of Chinese tourists seeking U.S. citizenship for their newborns.
Read More
Author Abigail Hing Wen discusses her NYT best selling YA novel, Loveboat, Taipei and its film adaptation Love in Taipei, based on the Taiwan summer study tour that started more than half a century ago. I had the pleasure of speaking with her, where we chatted about the crazy escapades, her own experiences with the program, how her book and the film came together, and what it's like telling this story to a new generation of diaspora youth.
Read More
A hiring announcement by a very small publishing company over the summer has snowballed into an explosive confrontation on racism within the powerful Romance Writers of America (RWA) organization, leading to the resignation of more than a dozen board and committee members within a few short weeks and leaving the future of the influential trade group in doubt.
Read More
Jake Gyllenhaal put his “heart and soul” into “Stronger”, a film about Jeff Bauman, who lost his legs in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and in the process found inspiration and a special kinship with Bauman. Plus additional bylines and secondary stories from the 42nd annual Toronto International Film Festival.
Read More
In “Gaga: Five Foot Two”, director Chris Moukarbel captures the artist hidden behind the outrageous costumes, revealing a woman unafraid to express her vulnerabilities and exercise her agency.
Read More
Barely over 100 words, this kind of story was what Reuters used to call a “brite” (though sometimes the stories themselves could get kind of dark) - cute, odd, unusual snippets of news. Anyway, I include this one here, not because it was a literary work of art, but because I am just enough of a Star Trek dork to be nerdily proud of my headline, which somehow passed muster with the editing desk.
Read More
Secrets and high fashion fuel the fires of revenge in “The Dressmaker”, a period film about a sophisticated woman who returns to her small-minded Australian town to seek retribution against those who sent her away as a child accused of murder. Plus additional bylines from the 40th annual Toronto International Film Festival.
Read More
It has been more than 25 years since a young Ethan Hawke stepped on his desk to salute his teacher, portrayed by Robin Williams, in “Dead Poets Society.”
Read More
The interview was supposed to start, but pianist Seymour Bernstein was not quite ready. He held up his iPad to take one more picture of actor-director Ethan Hawke before he was satisfied. “I think that captures the part of you that I’m very fond of: unassuming and full of affection,” Bernstein told Hawke, showing him the photo. Perhaps my all-time favourite interview.
Read More
British class and privilege are seldom associated with hooliganism and uncontrolled violence, but Danish director Lone Scherfig pairs the two in a new film about the debauched excesses of an exclusive Oxford University dining club.
Plus: A Minute With: Max Irons on class divide, all-male banter
Read More
Tom Carter found himself homeless, jobless, with little money and 6,000 miles (9,656 km) from home after answering a job posting on Craigslist that turned out to be a scam. He stayed anyway, found a teaching job in China, and eventually saved enough to embark on a 35,000-mile (56,325-km) two-year journey to every corner of China that inspired his 600-plus page photography book, “China: Portrait of a People.”
Read More
How do you make a compelling film when your lead character is trapped by a boulder and unable to move for most of the story? Director Danny Boyle, coming off the success of the Oscar-winning film “Slumdog Millionaire”, rose to the challenge with his fact-based feature, “127 Hours”, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Plus a look at the last days of apartheid, and additional blogs posts.
Read More
Entering the courtyard on a cool, mid-November evening, quiet music intermingled with the breezy sounds of laughter fill the air. Through the windows that surround the courtyard, students of the Westlake School for the Performing Arts can be seen practicing their plies and perfecting the graceful lines of their posture at the barre.
Read More