'Identifying Features' ('Sin Señas Particulares'): Film Review

There's a fascinating juxtaposition in Shalini Kantayya's cautionary documentary Coded Bias. The engaging principal guide in this journey through our 21st century algorithmic hellscape is Joy Buolamwini, a young African American MIT Media Lab researcher who discovered that most facial recognition software is wildly inaccurate when it comes to darker-skinned faces and those of women.

Bruce Haring, Tom Tapp UPDATE: The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants joined an earlier demonstration by their major league brothers honoring Black Lives Matter in a pregame ceremony.As at the earlier Yankees/Nationals game, opening day at Dodger Stadium saw the playing of a video from The Players Alliance, a group of African American players, calling for racial justice.The Dodgers coaching staff and the entire San Francisco Giants squad wore T-shirts with “Black Lives Matter” written

At a moment when Americans and their institutions are acknowledging the consequences of long-held racist assumptions and policies, Khadifa Wong's Uprooted couldn't be more timely.

Bruce Haring pmc-editorial-managerSen. Marco Rubio mistook a photo of himself with Rep.

Jessica Kiang “I’ve never been to Lebanon,” Lebanese-American high-schooler Marjoun (Veracity Butcher) tells us in voiceover. “Just here: Arkansas.” There’s the slightest uninflected irony in her delivery of that last word, suggesting that her story will archly observe the conundrum of many a second-generation immigrant: belonging to a place that often fails to recognize you as one of its own.

Lisa Kennedy Throughout the U.S.’s decades-long war in Afghanistan, Americans have seen (perhaps even been part of) a scene played out thousands of times in airport terminals and on military tarmacs. While the permanent fixture aspect of the airport reunion should vex, the emotion of it never gets old.

If you're old enough to remember a time when Nazis were scary enough all by themselves, you may be a bit flummoxed by Ghosts of War. Combining war and horror movie tropes in an awkward manner more silly than scary, this belated sophomore feature from writer/director Eric Bress (2004's The Butterfly Effect) makes you long for the days when American G.I.s didn't have to fight supernatural beings as well as German soldiers.

Also Read: 'The Outpost' Film Review: War Is Hell in Immersive Combat MovieEinhorn and Davis are sympathetic to Eisch, but the object isn’t to get us to root for him the way many moviegoers rooted for Kyle; the filmmakers just want us to understand where he comes from, where his family is going and what that says about the state of American manhood, particularly in the heartland.What is says is sobering and at times disturbing, which gives the film a quiet power even if it’s at times

Tom Grater International Film ReporterEXCLUSIVE: Take a trip inside historic Parisian art museum the Louvre as it re-opens following an unprecedented four-month closure with new short film Rusted Caravaggios, which comes from Egyptian-American filmmaker Sam Abbas.Based in Paris during the lockdown, Abbas, whose credits include features Alia’s Birth and The Wedding, jumped at the opportunity to film inside the iconic venue when a rare opportunity presented itself at the re-opening, when minimal

For a debut feature, writer-director Charlène Favier’s powerful coming-of-age sports drama Slalom couldn't come at a more timely moment.

Amanda N'Duka pmc-editorial-managerAstrakan Film AB will release Lost Girls & Love Hotels in select theaters and on VOD September 4.

The timing couldn't be more fortuitous for the release of Mary Mazzio's uplifting documentary about the nation's first African American high school rowing team, which feels almost like a tonic for these troubled times. Narrated by Common and including NBA greats Grant Hill and Dwyane Wade among its executive producers, A Most Beautiful Thing, scheduled to open in theaters, powerfully demonstrates the healing potential of sports and the ways it can help bridge societal divides.

Where did the universe, humanity, our planet and chocolate ice cream come from? They were all created by a giant, all-powerful being made of spaghetti, with two googly-eyes on raised stalks and a pair of meatballs where cheeks would bulge. This is the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM), and if there were any justice in the world, His story would stand as good a chance of being taught as fact in American schools as the anti-evolution narrative called Intelligent Design.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticIn “17 Blocks,” Cheryl Sanford, matriarch of a low-income African American household in southeast Washington, D.C., talks wistfully of a “parallel universe” where she and her family enjoy cookouts, vacations and gift-filled Christmas mornings. This melancholy confession comes moments after a closeup of her casually snorting cocaine.

Peter White Television EditorEXCLUSIVE: Charles Booker, the Democratic senate candidate who narrowly lost to former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath in a close race in Kentucky, is set to have his campaign documented by American Relapse and Bernie Blackout director Pat McGee.Booker’s campaign was gaining steam right up until he lost to McGrath earlier this week by a narrow margin.McGee has been embedded with the Booker campaign after the Kentucky House of Representatives member handed him access

Sam Heughan could have a new career in the offing. After we revealed recently how he showed his passion for cooking by joining Good Morning America host Ginger Zee on Instagram to create traditional Scottish treat cranachan, it now seems the Scots actor is branching out into burgers.

One of two offerings this year from Mexican filmmaker Gerardo Naranjo, Viena and the Fantomes looks to be the less likely to please fans of his much-admired 2011 Miss Bala (remade as a much-less-admired Gina Rodriguez vehicle last year): While his Mexico-set Kokoloko (a virtual Tribeca fest entry awaiting distribution) reportedly returns to tales of gang violence, Viena throws its heroine out on tour with a rock band as something between a roadie and a groupie.