Tere Paniagua, who manages Point of Contact Gallery and many of the details that make the Syracuse International Film Festival hum, said she and her sister, Rita, who directs the West Side’s La Liga, were “rolling on the floor.”

This was just a week ago, right after Puerto Rico’s official 2008 Oscar entry for best foreign language film, “Maldeamores,” skidded into town. The ensemble comedy, executive-produced by Benicio del Torres and featuring the great character actor Luis Guzman, wasn’t even on SIFF’s screening schedule...

CATEGORY: Movies

TAGS: Maldeamores, Syracuse International Film Festival, Puerto Rico, Carlitos Ruis, Luis Guzman

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This year’s Oscar-winner, the Coen Brothers’ “No Country for Old Men,” is a film some see as a parable of how little we know who we are as a nation since the rogue violence of some of our soldiers in the war in Iraq. Actually “No Country” is set earlier, in 1980, and Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is a Vietnam vet, the little distance of that conflict allowing enough breathing room so that echoes of My Lai stand in for Abu Ghraib and Haditha. When the decent old-school Texas sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones speaks of a “new” kind of criminal loose in the land, it’s dialogue lifted almost verbatim from Cormac McCarthy’s novel...

CATEGORY: Movies

TAGS: Millers Crossing, Coen Brothers, Gabriel Byrne, John Turturro

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Once I had a roommate enthusiastically preoccupied with the study of karate and getting ready to test for the black belt. Late-night shopping at Wegman’s during this period often involved sudden high kicks and startling whirls in the course of delivering bags of frozen peas or heads of lettuce to the shopping cart. I thought fondly of those moments while watching “Tanghi Argentini,” one of the five live-action short films nominated for the 80th Oscars that were awarded in February...

CATEGORY: Movies

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