You may be asking yourself, so how relevant can a 1930s show taking place aboard a transatlantic cruise ship, starring an entertaining gangster and a plucky cabaret singer and featuring a couple of crisscrossed lovers really be in 2012 NYC? The short...

I am always amazed at the lengths writers will go to in order to promote their books, not caring about the casualties they create in their wake. The latest controversy is about the practice of yoga and was started by...

The reason why we in the West may have identified so deeply with the revolutions of the Arab Spring this past year, seems to be the protesters unfaltering courage. This year's recipient of the Olof Palme Prize, Gomorrah's author in...

"...When God in his jealousy sends fear or storm from heaven, and they perish in a way unworthy of them. For God allows no one to have high thoughts but Himself." Herodotus

The first time I became fully aware of the grandiosity of the...

In an age when media reports are filled with despised dictators and deposed despots, Brazil's former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is a breath of fresh air. He is that elusive, once-in-a-lifetime popular (in every sense of the word) politician.

An upcoming...

Roberto Saviano is an Italian journalist, author of the non-fiction novel Gomorrah (published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux), which to date has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, has been translated into 54 languages and in 2008 was made into an...

I typically shy away from making broad, bold statements. And the Shortlist for the Academy Awards hasn't even been announced, so I am definitely putting the cart ahead of the horse. But when I first watched Asghar Farhadi's A Separation at this...

"I love giving gifts and I love receiving them. I really like giving little kids extravagant gifts. You see their little faces light up and they get excited. If it's a really good gift, I love receiving it, like jewels, small islands." Gina Gershon

I'll admit that I enjoy giving...

Just in time for the holidays, I find my inbox flooded with emails from foundations requesting money and invitations to charity drives and events. This year, thanks to Twitter, I can also count on my feed being jam packed daily with 140 characters or...

Stepping into the offices of Brand Synergy Group in the heart of Union Square in NYC feels a lot like arriving at a Zen garden of uber-cool and fame. The open layout shouts success from every corner and, as I...

"Other things, capitalism, economies, corporations, markets and currency, these are not forces of nature. We invented them. And if they don't work we can and we must change them." David Suzuki, at Occupy Vancouver -- October 22, 2011

On the eve...

"I remember the shirts that said 'Thank God I'm an atheist'. Funny. But I do not think so. I'm not a believer and I'm sorry." Nanni Moretti, 2011

I watched Nanni Moretti's latest film, We Have a Pope (Habemus Papam), at the...

"Although I live in the slime and muck of the dark age ... in the thick black fog of materialism ... the time of hell on earth ... I still aspire to see your face." Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche

The words above were written by...

I had high expectations for Black Gold, the film that kicked off this year's Doha Tribeca Film Festival in its world premiere. After all, there was so much riding on it, the first big budget Arab blockbuster,...

By now we've all heard about the incident, involving Omar Sharif and a pushy Egyptian journo. Even though I was a few feet away, no I did not witness it personally, the video is unclear and so I'll reserve my opinion. But...

Without a doubt, Lars von Trier's Melancholia will be remembered as the film that brought about the filmmaker's misguided comments about being a Nazi and understanding Hitler, during a press conference at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Yet,...

Some films can infuse us with their magic even before we have a chance to watch them. Personally, it may be an image, the mystery of its title or a particular theme which will create in this cinema lover a craving only...

I constantly crave a place where class, glamour and culture unite to form a kind of unique yet affordable luxury. A place where great world cinema plays nearly uninterrupted all day long and a great buffet of international food is served, but also where...

In his latest oeuvre, Woody Allen perfectly channels the spirit of Ernest Hemingway by having the actor portraying the American novelist utter this year's most unforgettable cinematic line: "No subject is terrible if the story is true, if the prose is clean...