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Review: Clemency

— by RON WILKINSON —

In this profound exploration of the emotional toll of capital punishment, Alfre Woodard seems to take responsibility for the entire movie, just as her character takes responsibility for ending the lives of those deemed by society as being unfit to live. As she does this the supporting cast seems to lift up beneath her to echo her sadness in multiple tones. The condemned man may turn out to be the lucky one.

Looking closer, the fact that Woodard practically simmers off the screen is testimony to the powerful supporting cast. Richard Schiff boils with anguished argument as obsessed lawyer and anti-death activist Marty Lumetta. He is being slowly destroyed by his inability to stop society from killing people as prison Warden Bernadine Williams is being emotionally unstrung by her assumption of the outrageous role of legal killer. (CONTINUED)


Valentine’s Day Top Five Movie Playlist

Well, you have one less problem to think about this Valentine’s Day. You can just go and catch a movie with your date. Instead of running around looking for things you can do, go back to your online gambling or favourite kiwi pokies and play your game, because your chance to-watch movie list is here. […][...]


Review: Little Joe

— by BEV QUESTAD — Alice is a bio-engineer who has created a plant with a scent that makes people happy. She wears a mask at all times while she is tending her creation that has been mass-propagated in a sterile, warm, locked, glass-enclosed test room. Why the high tech containment? This little sci-fi film […][...]


Review: Three Christs

— by BEV QUESTAD — “Three Christs” is as entertaining as it is soul-searching. A brilliant cast, headed by Richard Gere, and a poignant study of mental health make this the new “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” of 2020. Based on the psychiatric case study titled “The Three Christs of Ypsilanti” (1964), by Dr. […][...]


Review: Midnight Family

— by RON WILKINSON — Never have so few done so much for so little. In Mexico City, the Ochoa family operates a private ambulance service that survives, barely, by virtually begging critically injured patients to pay. Sometimes they do pay, and then local police bust the family for operating an unlicensed ambulance and take […][...]


Review: Invisible Life

— by RON WILKINSON — Born in Rio de Janeiro, Guida and Euridice grow up sharing their most intimate secrets. Through the brilliant direction of Karim Ainouz, we are part of that intimacy. There is no film in recent history that takes the viewer into the hearts of the characters as well. We feel their […][...]


Review: 1917

— by RON WILKINSON — Edited to simulate a continuous take, a plot that might otherwise be mundane and trite becomes a tense, power-packed race for life. The lethal terror of World War I is turned on its head by the realistic scenes of boredom, fear and rats in the trenches, making filth the worse […][...]


Review: Bombshell

— by BEV QUESTAD — The leering male staff made comments and others made demands. The pseudo-strong females were demeaned and coerced. Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman), a prior Miss America and a Stanford grad, was the first to rise up. This is her story and it is a good one. Young girls will ask the […][...]


Review: Dark Waters

— by BEV QUESTAD — If you’ve still got some Teflon pans, dump them immediately at a toxic waste site. That advice is inferred from an exposé on one of the world’s largest and most dangerous chemical companies and their production of perfluorooctanoic acid, aka PFOA, a deadly carcinogen. Robert Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) can’t help […][...]



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