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Count me one of the multitudes who adore the Netflix limited series “The Diplomat,” commandeered by “The West Wing” and “Homeland” alumnus Debra Cahn, which just launched Season 2 last week. I gulped down the six episodes as fast as I could.

The delicious center of her series is not the behind-the-scenes diplomacy engaged by two experienced U.S. envoys, Kate Wyler, the current U.S. Ambassador to England (Keri Russell) and her adoring husband Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell) — it’s their relationship, from bathroom and bedroom banter to all-out physical warfare, often followed by passionate sex. This married couple play out fascinating male-female power dynamics.

Russell and Sewell display a convincing intimacy that is great fun to watch. I spoke to Sewell on Zoom, and learned a few things you may or may not know about him and the show.

1. He is a respected British stage and television actor. In “The Diplomat,...

Drive-Away Dolls, the new film directed by Ethan Coen, which he coscripted with his partner Tricia Cooke, is a lot of things. First, it's a throwback, in every sense of the word, to the late 90s and early aughts, when teen-oriented movies had names like Dick or Dude, Where's My Car? It was an era in which a near-endless multitude of movies was oriented around scenes that played like half-baked sketches from the SNL slush pile, with only a wisp of plot to give the illusion that something was actually going on. For every Eyes Wide Shut, Topsy-Turvy, and Beau Trevail -- films that smack of idiosyncratic artistry -- there were dozens of titles, like Jawbreaker or But I'm a Cheerleader, that were so thoroughly enmeshed with the cultural mores of the era that they can't help but feel like essential time capsules -- especially for those, like this author,...

The Main Slate selections for the 59th New York Film Festival, presented by Film at Lincoln Center from September 24-October 10, have been announced. Featuring a mix of festival favorites and newcomers, the lineup includes new work by Pedro Almodóvar, Jane Campion, Jonas Carpignano, Joel Coen, Julia Ducournau, Bruno Dumont, Michelangelo Frammartino, Rebecca Hall, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Mia Hansen-Løve, Todd Haynes, Joanna Hogg, Hong Sangsoo, Tatiana Huezo, Radu Jude, Alexandre Koberidze, Kira Kovalenko, Nadav Lapid, Pietro Marcello, Avi Mograbi, Radu Muntean, Francesco Munzi, Gaspar Noé, Panah Panahi, Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Alice Rohrwacher, Céline Sciamma, Joachim Trier, Anisia Uzeyman, Paul Verhoeven, Apichatpong Weerasethaukul, Saul Williams, and Ramon and Silvan Zürcher.

“Taken together, the movies in this year’s Main Slate are a reminder of cinema’s world-making possibilities,” said Dennis Lim, NYFF Director of Programming and chair of the Main Slate selection committee. “They open up new ways of seeing and feeling and thinking,...

Courtesy Apple/A24

Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth” will make its World Premiere on the Opening Night of the 59th New York Film Festival on 24th September 2021.

A work of stark chiaroscuro and incantatory rage, Joel Coen’s boldly inventive visualisation of The Scottish Play is an anguished film that stares, mouth agape, at a sorrowful world undone by blind greed and thoughtless ambition. In meticulously world-weary performances, a strikingly inward Denzel Washington is the man who would be king, and an effortlessly Machiavellian Frances McDormand is his Lady, a couple driven to political assassination—and deranged by guilt—after the cunning prognostications of a trio of “weird sisters” (a virtuoso physical inhabitation by Kathryn Hunter). Though it echoes the forbidding visual designs—and aspect ratios—of Laurence Olivier’s classic 1940s Shakespeare adaptations, as well as the bloody medieval madness of Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, Coen...

Marking Joel Coen’s first film without his brother Ethan Coen, The Tragedy of Macbeth brings together Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand, Brendan Gleeson, Corey Hawkins, Moses Ingram, Harry Melling, Ralph Ineson, and more in what will be a faithful retelling of Shakespeare’s iconic story—shot in black-and-white by cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, who reteams with Coen from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Inside Llewyn Davis.

Film at Lincoln Center has announced that the Apple and A24 production is the Opening Night selection of the 59th New York Film Festival, making its World Premiere at the Alice Tully Hall on September 24.

Check out NYFF’s synopsis below.

A work of stark chiaroscuro and incantatory rage, Joel Coen’s boldly inventive visualization of The Scottish Play is an anguished film that stares, mouth agape, at a sorrowful world undone by blind greed and thoughtless ambition. In meticulously world-weary performances, a strikingly...

The Thane of Cawdor is hitting the Upper West Side.

Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth” will make its world premiere as the opening night film of the 59th New York Film Festival. The update on the William Shakespeare’s classic tale of sound and fury stars Denzel Washington as the title character and Frances McDormand as his scheming wife. Coen and McDormand are married and have previously collaborated to memorable effect on the likes of “Fargo” and “Blood Simple.” “The Tragedy of Macbeth” is a rare solo directing outing for Joel Coen, who makes most of his movies as one half of the Coen Brothers along with Ethan Coen.

“The Tragedy of Macbeth” will screen at Alice Tully Hall on Sept. 24, Film at Lincoln Center, the non-profit behind the festival, announced. In a press release touting the movie, festival organizers described it as “a work of stark chiaroscuro and incantatory rage,...