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Review: Museo

— by RON WILKINSON —

Dumb and Dumber meet The Joker. Try as you might, these two, in the hands of brilliant director Alonso Ruizpalacios, defy categorization, or explanation. Their outrageous acts are at the same time thoughtless and brilliant.

Gael García Bernal does the heavy lifting as aimless, disconnected student Juan Nuñez. Echoing the Nike theme of “Just Do It,” Nunez does exactly that. Question: Why did the nincompoop steal the 140 priceless artifacts that would be impossible to sell or turn into any type of negotiable wealth whatsoever and risk everything to do it? Answer: Because they were there.

(CONTINUED)


Review: An Elephant Sitting Still

— by RON WILKINSON — The film starts with the beginning of another lousy day. The father is drinking heavily at 8 am, bright and early, recovering from a broken leg and cursing life. In the next scenes, the other parents pummel their children with insults as their dreary, poverty stricken, dead end apartment buildings […][...]


Review: Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin

— by BEV QUESTAD — A glorious tribute to a captivatingly astute writer, “Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin” intermixes original images and motion graphics of the environments described in Le Guin books to tell the story of one of the greatest science fiction writers in the last 100 years. Though she grew up in […][...]


Review: Memoir of War

— by BEV QUESTAD — Based on Marguerite Duras’s memoir, this excellent film tells the story of those waiting for the return of their loved ones who had been taken to WWII death camps. Some arrested returned, yet others did not. What was life like for those who waited? How did they cope with the […][...]


Review: I Am Vengeance

— by RON WILKINSON — Ex-mercenary turned soldier, or soldier turned ex-mercenary, or mercenary turned gangster. There are lots of ways a writer/director can turn the trope. In the end none of them work but because they have all been done far too many times before. In writer/director Ross Boyask’s stab at the black knight […][...]


Review: Gavagai

— by BEV QUESTAD — A handsomely thin German businessman comes to the forested Telemark region of Norway anxious about his mission and in the first stages of grief. Surreal images of his deceased Chinese wife come to him when he is alone. She is dressed in colorful flowing Mandarin robes and exotic headdresses. She […][...]


Review: Puzzle

— by RON WILKINSON — A middle-aged mom finds herself, sets herself free, and in the process sets her family free as well. In a wonderful twist of plot, the screenplay is set in the context of a world class jigsaw puzzle competition, when the central message has nothing to do with that. There is […][...]


Review: The Captain

— by RON WILKINSON — If you think war is hell, see what happens when it stops. Like Tammany Hall’s Boss Tweed, Nazi deserter Willi Herold saw his opportunities and took them. Based on a true story, writer/director Robert Schwentke turns his back on the “Saving Private Ryan” fireworks and focuses on the filthy drudgery […][...]


Review: Dynamite Graffiti

— by RON WILKINSON — A woman walks on hesitant feet to a secret appointment at a humble shed in a dark forest. She is lightly dressed, the clothes she wears functional more than cosmetic. She is pretty, and her lover waits for her with great anticipation. When she arrives, several pounds of high explosives […][...]



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