George Mason University’s Visiting Filmmaker Series is going online. Anyone can attend!

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Visiting Filmmakers Series Online: Dennis Boni, Director of Photography
Wednesday, April 1, 2020 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM

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Visiting Filmmakers Series Online: A Conversation with Jennifer Baichwal, director of Anthropocene: The Human Epoch
Thursday, April 2, 2020 1:30 PM to 3:00 PM

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Visiting Filmmakers Series Online: Doug Spearman Masterclass in Directing
April 6, 2020, 1:30 PM to April 23, 2020, 3:00 PM

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Visiting Filmmakers Series Online: Tony Marquez, director and filmmaker
Tuesday, April 7, 2020 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM

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Visiting Filmmakers Series Online: Panel Discussion on Unions in Filmmaking
Wednesday, April 8, 2020 1:30 PM to 3:00 PM

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Visiting Filmmakers Series Online: Christelle Matou, Costume and production design
Monday, April 13, 2020 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM

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Visiting Filmmakers Series Online: Henry Ogunjimi, documentary filmmaker
Tuesday, April 14, 2020 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM

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Visiting Filmmakers Series Online: Kwanza Gooden, filmmaker
Tuesday, April 14, 2020 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM

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Visiting Filmmakers Series Online: Steph Garcia, actor, writer, comedian
Wednesday, April 15, 2020 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM

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Visiting Filmmakers Series Online: Akiva Peñaloza, writer, director
Monday, April 20, 2020 1:30 PM

If you have some extra time at home together, it’s a good time to teach kids to play chess. It teaches patience, sportsmanship, and strategy. As is often said, chess is a pool in which a mosquito may sip and an elephant may bathe. So even a young child can learn and even an experienced player can learn more. Plus there are some great movies about real-life children and teenage chess players.

Brooklyn Castle: P.S. 318 is a below-the-poverty-line inner city junior high school. And its students have won more national chess championships than any other in the country. So this is a touching and inspiring story of triumph and what can be accomplished in spite of the most daunting of obstacles if there is someone who believes in you. And it is a story of the joys of intellectual passion and a game that goes back centuries, even in an era of saturation in digital media. There is much of what you expect — gifted kids, dedicated teacher, tense anticipation, thrilling victories. The characters are endearing and their stories are stirring.

The Queen of Katwe: An illiterate girl from the slums of Uganda became an internationally ranked chess champion. So of course there is a Disney movie. But director Mira Nair has not made the usual feel-good underdog story. It is a wonderfully rich depiction of a family and a culture, as complex in its way as a master-level chess game with intricate moves by many pieces with different strengths and vulnerabilities.

The Dark Horse: It would be so easy — and so wrong — to make this true story of a Maori chess champion who struggles with mental illness as he teaches underprivileged kids into a safe, simple, saccharine, uplifting story. But writer/director James Napier Robertson, who himself played hundreds of chess games with real-life speed chess champion Genesis Potini, trusts his story and his audience enough to give us a film that is refreshingly messy, even grungy, and therefore much more powerful.

Endgame: “Modern Family’s” Rico Rodriguez stars in this story of the grandson of a chess champion who joins his school team as they prepare for the state finals.

Searching for Bobby Fischer: Based on the real-life story of chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin (real life chess player Max Pomeranc), this is a very thoughtful exploration of choices and parenting and what it means to have a full life, with a powerhouse cast including Joan Allen, Ben Kingsley, Laurence Fishburne, and Joe Mantegna, along with William H. Macy, David Paymer, and Laura Linney.

This blog post is dedicated to our wonderful son, who used to teach chess in the New York city schools.

Chicago’s Siskel Center, named for the legendary critic, has a guide to resources for watching its great independent and international films at home.

Thanks to Mary Minow for the tip!

All the President’s Men is one of my favorite movies of all time, so it was truly an honor and a thrill to be invited to talk about it with Blake Howard on his “All the President’s Minutes” podcast, which devotes an entire episode to each minute of the film. I got a great minute, the first meeting of Woodward (Robert Redford) and Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) and Bernstein interviewing a source on top of what was then the Hotel Washington. I was a summer intern on Capitol Hill the summer of the Watergate hearings and got to attend twice, and have been fascinated by Watergate ever since.

Be sure to tune in to hear our conversation and then watch the film again!

More great family movies to share while we stay safe at home:

Bells are Ringing: The adorable Judy Holliday in her signature role as Ella Peterson, who, in the days before voicemail and texting, worked for a small company that took and delivered phone messages in New York. She enjoyed putting on a French accent for phone calls to a French restaurant and pretending to be Santa for a mother whose boy wouldn’t eat his spinach. And she especially enjoyed the wake-up calls for a playwright working on his first script without his long-time writing partner. When she starts to meet the people on the other end of the phone, she changes their lives, and they change hers. The terrific cast includes Jean Stapleton, Dean Martin, Frank Gorshin, and Eddie Foy. Jr. and the classic songs include “Just in Time.”

Akeelah and the Bee: Keke Palmer plays a young girl with a talented for spelling and Laurence Fishburne plays her irascible coach. His “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” co-star Angela Bassett plays Akeelah’s mother. It’s an inspiring story of dreams, determination, and community.

Spellbound: And while we’re in the mood for spelling bees, be sure to watch this thrilling documentary about the annual Scripps-Howard spelling bee, with children under 14 competing to spell words even highly educated grown-ups would be daunted by. The featured kids come from a wide variety of families, from an undocumented Texas girl to the daughter of a single mother in Washington D.C. who calls herself a “prayer warrior” to the Indian-American boy whose grandfather paid 1000 people in India to pray for him.

Blinded by the Light: This neglected gem from last year is based on the real-life story of journalist Sarfraz Manzoor, who as a teenager in Thatcher-era Great Britain, found that the songs of Bruce Springsteen were truer about his life than anything he heard from his immigrant family or racist community. Few films depict as joyously the thrill of finding who you are through music that reveals you to yourself.

Masterminds: This is by no means a great movie, but it is very entertaining. Think “Die Hard” in a posh private school. A rebellious teenage happens to be in his step-sister’s school when it is taken over by a brilliant “mastermind” who holds the children for ransom. Future “Mad Men” star Vincent Kartheiser plays the teenager and the villain is an all-in Patrick Stewart.