Along with the glamor and the gushing over auteurs that dominate the Cannes Film Festival, documentaries are among this year's strongest movies in the Official Selection. In addition to Trashed -- which chronicles actor Jeremy Irons' impassioned investigation of the challenges posed by waste accumulation around the world -- audiences...
This week, I want to explore how sleep and fear are related. Their connection is direct and undeniable, as lack of the prior leads to an increase in the latter. Studies prove that sleeplessness or sleep deprivation negatively impacts your fearlessness and functioning.
As interest in vintage fashion magazines from the 40s and 90s and onward continues to soar, New York's cool crowd has descended on VFILES, the SoSo-based store where famed fashion magazine archivist Mike Gallagher has placed his pop-up store overflowing with vintage publications. But while the magazines are flying off...
Last Sunday, as NATO members met to discuss their upcoming plans for the war in Afghanistan, some members of the Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Against the War (IAVW) publicly returned their medals in protest of the repeated decision to continue putting Americans in harm's way. Their message highlights the sharp...
This Father's Day, June 17th, the Children's Defense Fund-New York and I will be joining George Gresham, President of 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East and the Children's Defense Fund national board member, Ben Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP, Rev. Al Sharpton, Founder and President of...
Wes Anderson is back. Moonrise Kingdom is his best film since Rushmore. The new film just premiered at Cannes and is being released in the States today, but I got to see it at a cast and crew screening in Newport, R.I. two nights ago.
In the early 1950s, one of my grandfather's great pleasures was taking his Pontiac out for a spin on Sunday afternoons in New York City. Gas was less than 25 cents a gallon. Traffic was a breeze. And the air was (relatively) clean.
On May 22, I attended a fantastic opening at the Clocktower Gallery in NYC. The gallery is a nonprofit art center in Manhattan that is a site for ground-breaking exhibitions and art residencies. The space also is the home to "Clocktower Radio," which plays a variety...
As Americans enjoy the holiday weekend, does anyone know how Memorial Day originated?
On May 1, 1865, freed slaves gathered in Charleston, South Carolina to commemorate the death of Union soldiers and the end of the American Civil War. Three years later, General John Logan issued a special order...
Many of us have read or heard some grim news concerning U.S. servicemembers and veterans in recent months: the March massacre of 17 Afghani civilians by a U.S. Army sergeant, the skyrocketing suicide rates among soldiers. These news stories shock our consciousness, provoke outrage, and focus attention on military mental...
Cary Hoffman, the forthright, funny and entertaining writer/performer of My Sinatra describes himself as a Medicare recipient who looks like a Rabbi. He became enchanted with Frank Sinatra's talent and charisma at the age of 12 when he began sleeping through the night with Frank's vocals as backdrop. The result?...
"Road movies" may be associated primarily with American film -- from The Grapes of Wrath to Easy Rider -- but the Brazilian director Walter Salles is growing into a master of the genre. In films like Central Station (1989), The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) and now On the Road, he...
When New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently contributed $500,000 to support a California ballot initiative to raise that state's cigarette tax to fund cancer research, West Coasters learned what we have seen throughout his tenure leading the nation's largest city -- his commitment to fighting Big Tobacco....
The New York State Board of Parole has denied Dennis Kozlowski's bid for parole. The decision appears to be based on his notorious reputation rather than the actual merits of his case. It certainly conflicts with the state's own criteria for release.
After several careful calculations, I think I've roughly seen it a few millions times in my life. I've never considered it to be that humorous. Penises, out of context, aren't inherently funny, are they? Situational penises can be funny, I guess. Shrinkage, sexual malfunction, size...
All eyes are turning to Belmont race track, where I'll Have Another will be running for the Triple Crown on June 9. Will he create a magical New York moment, becoming the first horse since Affirmed in 1978 to pull off the trick? Or will he become the 12th 3-year-old...
This June marks 42 years of Pride Parades in New York City, and AOL's Out at AOL club is getting involved in the latest, greatest Pride as part of a strong and evolving tradition celebrating inclusivity and marking the incredible progress of a powerful movement.
If the same proportion of people in the United States saw The Avengers as the percentage of French citizens who have seen The Intouchables, the Marvel super-hero-fest would have grossed well over $1 billion domestically (instead of slightly less than half of that).
In a Fox News interview this week Mitt Romney made it quite clear that he's the anti-education candidate. In criticizing what he calls President Obama's attack on capitalism, the presumptive Republican nominee summarily dismissed and disrespected the entire teaching profession:
"He doesn't understand how the free economy works," he said of Obama. "He's never had a job in the free economy."
Really? Teaching Constitutional law was not a real job? Being a grade school or high school teacher or college professor doesn't make you part of the "free economy" workforce in Romney's convoluted elitist thinking?
It's morally reprehensible and irresponsible enough that, as Massachusetts governor, he cut the education budget so severely that state universities were forced to raise tuition by 63 percent. But his latest salvo against educators should be a dire warning to voters as to what a Romney presidency will look like for those who, unlike him, weren't born with a silver spoon and who need educational assistance.
And any teacher or professor who is contemplating voting for Romney has to question his principles, his lack of commitment to the education of America's youth, and to his palpable disdain for how they earn a living in his "free...
Annette Insdorf | Posted May 26, 2012