David Denby

Based on J. G. Ballard's autobiographical novel, tells the story of a boy, James Graham, whose privileged life is upturned by the Japanese invasion of Shanghai, December 8, 1941. Separated from his parents, he is eventually captured, and taken to Soo Chow confinement camp, next to a captured Chinese airfield. Amidst the sickness and food shortages in the camp, Jim attempts to reconstruct his former life, all the while bringing spirit and dignity to those around him.

The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, cartoons, satire and poetry published by Conde Nast Publications. Starting as a weekly in the mid-1920s, the magazine is now published 47 times per year, with five of these issues covering two-week spans…

Mike Leigh's brilliant re-creation of the most famous partnership in the British theatre-the collaboration of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan in the glory era of imperial rule. There are elements here of a traditional bio-pic-failure, triumph, intimations of immortality-but none of the stodginess and self-congratulation that usually plague the form. Sullivan (Allan Corduner), a libertine who nevertheless had serious pretensions as a composer, and Gilbert (Jim Broadbent), formal, irascible, and asexual, but a great theatrical pro, are so dissimilar in temperament that they can hardly bear each other's company. Leigh suggests that the combination of sentimental languor and incisiveness produced the art of "The Mikado," whose preparation and first performance take up the second half of the movie. The authentic period stage lighting produces a glow on the painted faces; the fragile beauty of Sullivan's tunes is piercing when they are played, as they are here, at slower tempos than we are used to hearing. In all, one of the greatest movies about the theatre. With Lesley Manville, Timothy Spall, Ron Cook, and Wendy Nottingham.

Summer 1945 in a Japanese seaside village near Hiroshima. The local physician, Dr. Akagi, trying to stem a life threatening epidemic, enlists a motley but lively crew of outcasts from Japan's militaristic society to help him. Imamura's lifelong commitment to the idealism and absurdity of daily life attains profound new levels of insight in this Cannes Film Festival selection.

The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, cartoons, satire and poetry published by Conde Nast Publications. Starting as a weekly in the mid-1920s, the magazine is now published 47 times per year, with five of these issues covering two-week spans…

Mike Leigh's superlative drama, at once hysterically funny and profoundly sad, examines a wounded contemporary British family. Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a young black optometrist, has just buried her beloved adoptive mother. In her sorrow, she embarks on a search for her birth mother, who turns out to be Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn), a white factory worker living a lonely life with her surly daughter Roxanne (Claire Rushbrook). No one in the family, except Cynthia's brother Maurice (Timothy Spall) and his wife Monica (Phyllis Logan), knows that the teenage Cynthia gave up a child for adoption without ever seeing the baby. Hortense contacts Cynthia, and after a heart-wrenching reconciliation, they become best friends. Maurice and Monica, childless but financially secure, are very fond of Roxanne and host a family barbeque to celebrate her twenty-first birthday. Cynthia convinces Hortense to attend the party and meet the family–as a mate from the factory–but during the cake and champagne celebration, the family's secrets and lies emerge in a cathartic, emotional sweep. Leigh's trademark for developing his films' characters and storylines from an intense series of improvisations with the actors themselves reaches its summit with Hortense and Cynthia's reunion in a coffee shop, resulting in another deeply moving portrait of a family at a personal crossroads.

From the award-winning director Kore-eda Hirokazu (Maborosi) comes a remarkably touching film exploring the profound human need to discover meaning in everyday life. Many films have offered insight into the unexplainable realm of the after life. In Hirokazu's thought-provoking vision, the newly deceased find themselves in a way station somewhere between Heaven and Earth. With the help of dedicated caseworkers, each soul is given three days to choose one cherished memory from their life that they will relive for eternity. As the film reveals, recognizing happiness and finding a life's worth of meaning in a single event is no simple task. If Heaven is only a single memory from your life, as Hirokazu suggests, which memory would you choose?