— by BEV QUESTAD — Considered a secret weapon by movie industry professionals, Lillian Michelson explains that she and her husband worked as a team for 60 years on films like “The Ten Commandments,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Spartacus,” “The[...]
Archive for April, 2017
Review: The Student
— by RON WILKINSON — Writer/director Kirill Serebrennikov dives headfirst into the adolescent mind in an entreaty for understanding, and, well, common sense. Student Veniamin Yuzhin (Pyotr Skvortsov) is having a bad day and it is up to his science teacher, Elena (Viktoriya Isakova), to s[...]
Review: Graduation
— by RON WILKINSON — “Graduation,” Cristian Mungiu’s latest exploration into the murky folds of conscience and personal responsibility, features the father-daughter pair of Romeo and Eliza. Romeo is a successful, if underpaid, doctor practicing in a small town in Romania. H[...]
Review: The Lost City of Z
— by RON WILKINSON — Hardly the swashbuckling story on might expect, “Z” focuses on the life and motivations of British explorer Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam). Like many others, he explores the Amazon jungle in the early 20th century looking for a legend. However, his motivation is [...]
Review: A Quiet Passion
— by BEV QUESTAD — At the end of the second semester at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, circa 1850, the students were asked, “Do you wish to come to God and be saved? Those who wish to be Christian and be saved will move to my right. To those who remain and hope to be […][...]
Review: The Zookeeper’s Wife
— by BEV QUESTAD — Their son sleeps with two blond cubs cuddled gently around him. A long-nosed black and white furry badger clutches like a baby to a human. A dromedary, aka a one-humped camel, scurries humorously around the zoo grounds in free abandon. This seemingly innocent film open[...]