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Review: Scheme Birds

— by RON WILKINSON —

It does not matter where the steel went, England or China. What is left in Motherwell Scotland is a regiment of left-behinds who have no future, and they do not even know it. A documentary almost without hope, the protagonist Gemma, a child growing into a woman, suffers more heartbreak in her first five years of adulthood than most see in a lifetime. There is little to compensate except that she and her child are alive. Alive and coping.

As Gemma puts it, scheme housing is not any special kind of place. It just is a place. A setting as stark as any desert, the cement and packed dirt courtyards are emphasized by the film’s silent soundtrack. (CONTINUED)


Exclusive Interview: Director Betty Ramirez

— by LYNETTE CARRINGTON — Taking a leap into becoming a first-time movie director can be an overwhelming endeavor. Perhaps it is even more daunting when your background is not in the film industry. But Betty Ramirez did just that – directed her first-time film with passion and insight serving as her teachers on the […][...]


Review: Bacurau

— by RON WILKINSON — In the third world, a water truck on the road means one thing, there are people at the end of the trip who will die without it. They may have had water once, years or decades ago. Due to climate change, resource extraction or corporate manipulation, that water is gone. […][...]


Exclusive Interview: Actor/Writer Jeff Auer

— by LYNETTE CARRINGTON — If you were in a band at any point in your life, the thought of getting that old band back together probably has an undeniable mystique about it. Or maybe your favorite band has broken up, but deep down, you want that band back together. New film, “The Incoherents” follows […][...]


Review: The Painted Bird

— by RON WILKINSON — Jerzy Kosinski’s novel was debunked almost the day it reached the bookstores in 1965. The author’s claim that the story of a young Jewish or Gypsy boy was his own was left by the wayside. Despite that, the story reaped acclaim for its visceral depiction of the horrors of war […][...]


Review: Earth (aka Erde)

— by BEV QUESTAD — “When a girl at a bar asks you what you do, and you look at her and you can honestly tell her right in the eyes that ‘I move mountains for a living,’ she questions that.” Sometimes a one-minute trailer is simply better than the film. Tightly woven with pithy […][...]


Review: No Small Matter

— by BEV QUESTAD — There is a national security threat that is more important than all the others, but who’s talking about it? Three retired military leaders speak out about this American crisis that cripples every sector of US development. It is the one thing not only endangering our military but our competitive position […][...]


Review: Born to Play

— by BEV QUESTAD — My two heroes for the week are Allison Cahill and Chanté Bonds. They are famous for being the very best at what they do. They have guts, courage, strength and, most of all, drive. They have identified what they wanted to achieve and have let nothing stop them. They are […][...]


Review: Relic

— by RON WILKINSON — Mom walked away and daughter and grand daughter Kay and Sam are as miffed as they are concerned. We all have to go away to some care center or other as we get older and start forgetting things. As it turns out, young people forget things, too. Like old people. […][...]



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