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Review: Charm City

— by RON WILKINSON —

A great documentary takes on a life of its own. By the end of “Charm City,” it is obvious that to write this as fiction would be impossible, this is a screenplay written by those who know. There is no middleman, the viewer is in a world that few could ever imagine. This story has been dramatized on the TV series “The Wire,” but this is the real deal, the unadulterated inner city of America. No simple stories, no simple causes and no simple answers.

In avoiding finger pointing as well as punditry, Marilyn Ness’ chronicle features citizens, police, and government officials struggling to control the deadly fallout of the decaying inner city. The setting is Baltimore in 2015, a time of unparalleled violence in the city. (CONTINUED)


Review: Ghost Box Cowboy

— by RON WILKINSON — A stranger in a strange land sees gold nuggets falling out of the sky. The cowboy puts on his hat and rides for the horizon, horse and camel. The Ghost Box is the key. A strange, inexplicable black box that talks to the spirits of the dead while warding off […][...]


Review: Ready Player One

— by JESSIKA OWENS — Hello, my name is Jessika and I am an addict. What am I addicted to? My Funko Pop collection is evidence of my obsession over all things pop culture. “Ready Player One” ambitiously wants to appease said obsession. Film, television, music and game references litter the world that is “Ready […][...]


Review: The Girl and the Picture

— by BEV QUESTAD — The 1937 Nanjing Massacre by Japanese forces is an example of a military invasion gone berserk. Initially, the Japanese vehemently denied their actions and called reports of the mass murder of sick, elderly and poor as made-up stories. But unknown to these liars, John Magee, a missionary with the Episcopal […][...]


Review: Ghost Stories

— by RON WILKINSON — Professor Phillip Goodman is comfortable with himself. As an A-list psychic debunker, he is quite at home shattering others’ spiritual illusions. His mad dog attacks on celebrated practitioners of the sixth sense almost always win him another stuffed head over the mantle, and even a failure gets him in the […][...]


Review: I Feel Pretty

— by JESSIKA OWENS — Renee Bennett is a women with low self esteem, a job that isn’t fulfilling and is for the most part, your “average” woman. Who is Renee Bennett and why is she attempting to mirror the qualities and experiences so many women have? What does it look like in that proverbial […][...]


Review: Island of the Hungry Ghosts

— by RON WILKINSON — Tiny Christmas Island, Australia, may be the world’s most beautiful and mystical place. At least, the most beautiful place in which you would never want to live. The sea pounds its jagged, rocky shoreline whistling, wheezing and sometimes screaming through blowholes millions of years old. One of the last discovered […][...]


Review: Lou Andreas-Salomé

— by BEV QUESTAD — Lou Andreas-Salomé, born in Russia in 1861, machete-chopped herself into the inner sanctum of the all-male intellectual community in Germany with a strident drive for independence and equality. Gifted with an extraordinary intellect, a drive to pursue advanced study and a strong will, she demanded that the leading thinkers of […][...]


Review: Zama

— by RON WILKINSON — Don Diego de Zama suffocates within a glass cage in the sweltering miasma of Spanish colonial Paraguay. A minor official of an invasion, he is stationed where occupiers are sent to die. If they do not die they are forgotten. South American born, and slowly being written off, he is […][...]



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