Author Archives: Misha Mihailova

There are two Afflecks in this movie, but don’t worry: only one of them is acting. In a shameless display of Hollywood nepotism, first-time director Ben Affleck has cast little brother Casey in the lead of “Gone Baby Gone.” The film focuses on the investigation of a little girl’s kidnapping — a highly timely story, »

A good film shot as a graduate school thesis usually earns an A and a pat on the back. An exceptional one can go on to win the Critics’ Award at the Berlin Film Festival, be listed as one of the National Society of Film Critics’ 100 Essential Films of all time, become one of »

Instead of swirly-shaped magical signs, the Seeker should go looking for a better plot and adequate special effects. “The Seeker: The Dark is Rising” is Walden Media’s latest, and by far most feeble, stab at the “fantasy for kids” genre (after “The Chronicles of Narnia” and “A Bridge to Terabithia”). David Cunningham’s latest movie faithfully »

“In the Shadow of the Moon” will not keep you in the dark for even a second. Constructed around surviving Apollo crew members’ recollections of the first moon landing and the expeditions that followed it, David Sington’s riveting documentary mixes interview bits with archival footage to shed light on one of the defining moments in »

“Eastern Promises” is Eastern all right, but the promising part is arguable. Crafting a Russian mafia thriller proves easier said than done for director David Cronenberg, the man behind “History of Violence” (also brutal, also with Viggo Mortensen and also not half as good as it could’ve been). The movie starts off strong with a »

If the last time you were up in the skies was on the plane to Yale, get adventurous and fly over the cuckoo’s nest this weekend. It’s worth the extra turbulence. In a riveting, thought-provoking production directed by Marshall Pailet ’09, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” — a theatrical adaptation of Ken Kesey’s classic »

All roads lead to Rome, but only one will take you to eunuch women, fake lepers and sneezing corpses. In a thoroughly entertaining production directed by Erin Cawley ’08, Stephen Sondheim’s musical “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” inspired by the farces of the Roman playwright Plautus, is pure entertainment from »

There are at least 23 better things to do than watch “The Number 23.” For instance, you could make a list of all the important years in your life whose four digits add up to 23. Or you could just poke your eye repeatedly with a hockey stick. Maybe 23 times. Directed by Joel Schumacher, »

Even when it literally depicts nothing, modern art can still succeed at being controversial. In an engaging production this weekend directed by Bix Bettwy ’08, Yasmine Reza’s Tony-award winning “Art” focuses on the rupturing ties between three long-time friends. Tensions among them begin to arise after Serge (Bobby Allen ’09), a self-proclaimed connoisseur of modern »

German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s debut film, “The Lives of Others,” will serve as a reminder for all those who forgot the plot of George Orwell’s “1984,” with one difference: While the latter is fiction, the former was real, and painfully so. Though it is his first, the movie has already earned von Donnersmarck »

Arranged marriages, unlucky feet (not to be confused with their happy equivalent) and honest thieves will bring a cinematic perspective to both racial and universal themes this weekend. The fifth annual Asian American Film Festival, hosted by the Asian American Cultural Center, will offer a collection of internationally recognized shorts and features. Over the last »

As soon as you walk into the Nick Chapel Theater and spot the queen-size bed on stage, you’ll realize why director Leah Franqui ’09 wishes she hadn’t told her grandparents about “La Ronde: A Play in Ten Dialogues.” After all, they’re the offspring of the generation that banned Arthur Schnitzler’s play in 1921 on account »