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Review: Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts

— by RON WILKINSON —

Whatever acts of bloody violence Marlina may be guilty of, her crimes are nothing compared to the delightful twist director Mouly Surya has put in the neck of the spaghetti western. The lone cowboy, modestly dealing with laughably outrageous fortune with simple, terminal solutions, has nothing on this Indonesian widow. The trick is to exemplify karma in action without getting all egotistical about it. Rape me and you die. Steal my cattle and I steal your head. It is like meditation. In a way.

Beautiful loser Markus (Egi Fedly) thought about it too late and his head takes a road trip with Marlina (Marsha Timothy). First she is on foot, then she is on horseback and, finally, on his motorcycle. Marlina has evolved beyond the high plains drifter stereotype. She has embraced the brave new world of feminism. (CONTINUED)


Review: Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf

— by BEV QUESTAD — Brimming with beauty, Thomas Piper’s sensitive presentation of “The Gardens of Piet Oudolf” is a soft poem of life. Already known as an art photographer, capturing the gardens of Dutch landscape designer Piet Oudolf in all of the seasons is truly a project supreme. Presented with delicate piano accompaniment, never […][...]


Review: Naila and the Uprising

— by BEV QUESTAD — Specifically, this is the story of Naila. In 1967, when she was a young girl at school, she learned her house had been blown up. She and her four sisters went home to see her father crying. She grew up with this experience of the Israeli occupation in Ramallah and […][...]


Review: In the Last Days of the City

— by BEV QUESTAD — “If you want to see the world in one day, ride the sun.” A cinematographic study, a film poem and a mosaic of life in Cairo during President Mubarak, Tamer El Said’s film witnesses daily life in Egypt. Though there is spartan dialogue and plot, there is a sense that […][...]


3 video games that could work as movies

It is no huge secret that Hollywood has seemed to have run out of new ideas years ago, depending now almost exclusively on comic book movies, well-known franchise adaptations, reboots, prequels, spin-offs and sequels to make its money. One of the wells that Hollywood keeps coming back to when deciding what property to adapt next […][...]


Review: American Animals

— by RON WILKINSON — The heist gone terribly wrong is some of the best film noir subject matter there is. There is the able and deserving hero who cannot get a break. There is the double-crossing partner who gets his just desserts in the end. There is the unpredictable love that gets in the […][...]


Review: Return to Mount Kennedy

— by BEV QUESTAD — This film is just not what you expect it to be. Opening with gorgeous photography of quiet, pristine snow on a field of majestic peaks, it abruptly switches to the raucous grunge scene of Seattle in the ’80s, focusing in on the band Mudhoney (“Touch Me, I’m Sick”), crowd surfing, […][...]


Review: Dirtbag

— by BEV QUESTAD — Described as the Bob Dylan of mountain climbing – “completely inscrutable and no one’s sure if they like him or not” – Fred Beckey was the ultimate rock-climber, with more first ascents than anyone in the world. A dirtbag in colloquial speech is a dirty, unkept, low-life, unemployed individual who […][...]


Review: RBG

— by BEV QUESTAD — Thank you, Ruth, for making sure my friends had the freedom to pursue the jobs of their passion (Marines) and could be hired irrespective of their gender (security guard). Thank you for promoting respect and equity under the law so that women cannot be excluded from publicly-funded institutions and that […][...]



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