film

Most people have heard of "AA" or Alcoholics Anonymous.  The international program is credited with helping thousands of alcoholics recover from their addiction. It's membership totals two million worldwide.

But not many outside of AA know about the man who co-founded the organization. His name was Bill Wilson. A documentary about him opens Friday in New Haven at  Bow Tie Criterion Cinemas.

WNPR's Lucy Nalpathanchil spoke with Co-Producer and Director of the film, Kevin Hanlon.  More about the film can be found here: 

From Frank Abagnale in "Catch Me If You Can" to "The Return of Martin Guerre" to "The Music Man," we are entertained and amused by stories of impostors.

One of the basic rules of showbiz is that you don't overshadow the star.

The tiny village of Stonington Borough is hoping Hollywood stardom can put it on the map. Hope Springs, the movie shot last year on location in the Borough, starring Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones, opened Wednesday. WNPR’s Harriet Jones reports.

The last time Stonington Borough hit the silver screen it had to give all the glory to its next door neighbor.

“I’m not going to be slinging pizza for the rest of my life.”

“The best pizza!”

On Monday, The Center for Sexual Assault Crisis Counseling and Education in Stamford hosted a viewing of "Invisible War," an award-winning documentary about sexual assault in the military. More servicemembers who have experienced this trauma are starting to file claims with the VA.

Every year the Berkshire International Film Festival screens films everyone knows are going to make a big spalsh.

This year, more than 70 independent films from around the country and the world, will be screened. We spoke with Kelley Vickery, co-founder of the festival and interviewed two documentary filmmakers about the changing role of thier craft.

Leave your comments below, e-mail colin@wnpr.org or Tweet us @wnprcolin.

D.W. Griffith's 1915 film, the Birth of a Nation is both acclaimed and reviled. It's acclaimed for its cinematic innovations and technical effects. It's reviled for its extremely racist view of African Americans and its glorification of the Ku Klux Klan.

Two graduates of the University of Connecticut have teamed up to tell the stories of women who share a common experience. 

Hello,

My name is Brian Johnson and I’m a 23 year old senior from Central Connecticut State University.  I’m also an intern at the CPBN Media Lab, and I write monthly film reviews for my local newspaper “The Chronicle”. I’m here to present my top 5 films for 2011. This is not a list of the most commercially successful films or highest critically rated films. It is merely a list of my personal favorites.

It's dangerous business adapting a film as iconic as It's a Wonderful Life for the stage. For one thing, you're begging audiences (and reviewers alike) to compare your new adaptation to the source material, even to reassess the source material itself at every turn. Those comparisons and reassessments are nothing approaching fair, but they happen anyway. So let's dispense with as much of that as we possibly can at the top here.

Reality is composed of the public and the private. Paul Marcarelli was the Test Man, the "Can You Hear Me Now" guy for nine years of iconic commercials. During that time, he believed he could not identify himself as a gay man without affecting his income stream. The Test Man had to be Everyman, not part of a sub-group.

It has been called "The Forgotten War", but it's not forgotten by writer and director John Sayles, who is on the show to talk about his newest film about the Philippine-American war, "Amigo".

Is Connecticut funny? Is Connecticut anything?

In 1992, film-maker Ken Simon made a documentary attempting to probe the identity of the state. He interviewed a range of "experts," including me. The title of this documentary? "Between Boston and New York."

That tells you something. Even a painstaking attempt to pin down what Connecticut is winds up bowing to all the things Connecticut ain't.  There's a somewhat rude anatomical term for this. I'm not going to use it.

The Silk City Flick Fest is underway in Hartford and runs through this weekend. This year's theme is Steampunk. Joining us by phone is filmmaker and founder of the Silk City Flick Fest Justin Michael Morales.

During the week of September 23rd to October 2nd 2011, over 100,000 people in over 250 cities across six continents gather in Cinemas, Galleries, Universities, Museums and Cafes for one purpose - to view and vote on our Finalists' Films in the Annual MANHATTAN SHORT Film Festival.

In 2011 the Film Festival recieved 598 Entries from 48 Countries and selected 10 short films which are Finalists in the 2011 MANHATTAN SHORT. 

Bill Curry says there should be a National "Bring Your Whole Self to Politics" day in which political people reveal all the complicated sides they have that don't fit into the stark equations that make one a liberal or a conservative, a Republican or a Democrat.

Mothers of Bedford is a feature length documentary film that follows five women incarcerated in New York's Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. 

The film examines the struggles and joys these five women face as prisoners and mothers. It shows the normal frustrations of parenting as well as the surreal experiences of a child's first birthday party inside prison, the cell that child lives in with her mother, and the biggest celebration of the year, Mother's Day in prison!

See a screening of this film June 23.

Mothers of Bedford is a feature length documentary film that follows five women incarcerated in New York's Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. 

The film examines the struggles and joys these five women face as prisoners and mothers. It shows the normal frustrations of parenting as well as the surreal experiences of a child's first birthday party inside prison, the cell that child lives in with her mother, and the biggest celebration of the year, Mother's Day in prison!

See a screening of this film June 23rd.

What makes a Jewish film, well, Jewish?

It's a question for which the Mandell JCC Hartford Jewish Film Festival has twenty-one star-studded answers, with an eclectic slate of first-run dramatic features, power-packed documentaries, biographies, musicals, comedies and shorts to amaze, inspire and entertain movie lovers. Our international search to discover new and unusual films that take Jewish storytelling to new heights yielded cinematic gems from Argentina, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Romania and the United States.

Elizabeth Taylor has died. But the moviegoing experience she embodied died long before her. 

 Renowned film critic David Thomson plumbs the horror and inspiration of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest film.

The movie that had the biggest impact on the Academy Awards over the last ten years is one that did not win best picture ... or even get nominated - it was  "The Dark Knight," Christopher Nolan's 2008 Batman movie that was shunned in 2009.

Movies are usually beautiful lies. If you want to learn about history, read a history book. The most a movie can do is kind of light you up, in a vague way, about its historical subject. You watch "Gandhi," maybe you get why Gandhi was such a big deal.

Finally, Colin and David Edelstein agree on something - Winter's Bone for Best Picture!

America's Greatest Living Film Critic knows his movies. We talked with him about the surprises in the 2010 Oscar nominations and which awards he thinks are a lock. 

Edelstein also dropped some references to a few really interesting movies, a few of which you can find on the sidebar.