Sophia Loren is as evocative a name as we’ve ever had in film. Immediately you can picture those eyes which, in a single scene, can invite you, pierce you, warn you, restore you. That deeply resolute, honeyed voice. Cheekbones that enter the room first. A husky, conspiratorial laugh. A body that drapes a housecoat, a suit or a gown in a way that appeals to persons of every sexuality. The sense that she knows herself, can laugh at herself. A woman who once famously charmed that King of Charm, Cary Grant, right into a romance but eventually nestled into a…

The new doc ‘The Go-Gos’, much like the band’s music, is brisk, well-paced, and full of sudden depth charges. Getting to hear the entire band reflect from a position of hard-won sanity and sobriety adds a layer of calm to a frenetic burst of a story. Solo interviews with these women (Charlotte Caffey, Belinda Carlisle, Gina Schock, Kathy Valentine, Jane Wiedlin) who are now in their 60s are highly and characteristically appealing, benefitting from an apparent common agreement to tell-it-like-it-was.

The film begins with a blast of thrash and fury. We see how each young woman was attracted to and…

I was much older than the target demographic for ‘Glee’, but I watched it semi-faithfully for these reasons: A) the intentionally diverse casting and primetime representation of many marginalized groups B) the clever reinvention and integration of pop songs and C) Naya Rivera.

Truth be told, since the show could be so wildly uneven, Rivera was often the ‘A’ reason I tuned in, always hoping she’d get a scene or a number.

Naya Rivera portrayed Santana, the tart-tongued (to put it mildly) captain of Glee’s cheerleading squad. By casting an Afro-Latina actress in the part, the show’s producers were already…

‘They just don’t make them like that anymore’ seems an odd moviegoing cliché to apply to the newly released “Miss Juneteenth.” When did ‘they’ in the world of movies ever truly apply to black filmmakers in any kind of sustained way, and when did we ever see character-driven films that detailed modern-day black life in immersive style with black females at the center?

And yet, ‘Miss Juneteenth’, in its gently humane and even-handed approach, with an eye to the humorously naïve eccentricities of American public life, recalls the specific work of Seventies-era directors like Robert Altman, Charles Burnett, Jonathan Demme…

Recently a 15 year-old student in my class said that he yearned for more education to help him understand the signs of the times. “I look at social media, but after a while all I start seeing is box after box after box.” It’s too much and not enough, he seemed to say.

Keeping up with the latest in a long, long line of anti-Black murders, police repression, systemic injustice and civil unrest feels necessary, but may indeed feel like breadth and not depth at the same time. …

One of my students told me recently he grieves the many losses he’s facing as the last part of his senior year is spent isolated from his friends. In the next moment he said: “I have to admit I’m enjoying spending more time with my family.” A teenager admitting time with his loved ones is sustaining his hurting heart is an unexpected upside to a time filled with woe.

In practice, the gathering place for many families today is not just the dinner table or the driveway basketball court: it’s the flatscreen. More than ever, the digital machines in our…

Many famous people are touted for their communication skills, but few seem as naturally adept at just talking — plain, simple, responsive, funny, talking — as Michelle Obama. At one point in ‘Becoming’, the just-released documentary on Netflix about the former First Lady as she crosses the nation on a long arena-sized book tour for her autobiography of the same name, Mrs. Obama explains her ability to engage.

Even in the briefest encounters, she listens with concentration (while trying to sign books) and attempts to hear people speak, just as they are. “When somebody walks up to me, don’t look…

Ryan Murphy’s effervescent ‘Hollywood’ starts off like one of the fizzy cocktails Patti LuPone is always sipping in its many bar scenes. Watching the early episodes, it’s easy to feel intoxicated, especially if you have even an ounce of curiosity about the lurid behind-the-scenes machinations involved in producing the ‘wholesome’ American studio films of the thirties and forties. By the end however, you may feel like your liquor has gone flat and someone tossed out your drink and filled the glass with medicine instead.

Trying to cure the industry of its persistent disease of exclusion and stereotyping, Murphy’s series is…