— by RON WILKINSON — As the chicken embryo consumes the food inside the egg, so do we consume the world’s resources. Consumption threatens to become more than a means to an end. It threatens to become an end unto itself. The beautiful things in this movie are not the priceless things w[...]
Archive for June, 2018
Review: Boys Cry
— by RON WILKINSON — Two teens slamming down pizza from their bottom rung jobs radiate their lust for life. Sprung from work and cruising home they hit and kill a pedestrian on a dark street. They did not see the victim, because he did not want to be seen. Terror stricken, they flee the [...]
Why gambling movies are made
Gambling movies – or movies that have a central story based on gambling – are made with gamblers in mind. Such movies are made because the directors know for a fact that they are people who can relate and will understand the movie without fail. Examples of gambling movies and why they are made [...]
Review: The Testament
— by BEV QUESTAD — Yoel Halberstam has seven days to find a mass grave in Austria before construction starts. But where exactly is it, why won’t people talk and does it actually exist? Halberstam is an historian, an orthodox Jew, and a devout seeker of the truth. His crucial work is hi[...]
Review: Naples in Veils (aka Napoli velata)
— by RON WILKINSON — The camera spins around a dizzying spiral staircase as shots ring out. Cut to an obscure, abstract play being performed in the apartment of a member of the ensconced elite. A stunningly sexy Adriana (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) is swept off her feet by the equally sensual [...]
Review: Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts
— by RON WILKINSON — Whatever acts of bloody violence Marlina may be guilty of, her crimes are nothing compared to the delightful twist director Mouly Surya has put in the neck of the spaghetti western. The lone cowboy, modestly dealing with laughably outrageous fortune with simple, term[...]
Review: Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf
— by BEV QUESTAD — Brimming with beauty, Thomas Piper’s sensitive presentation of “The Gardens of Piet Oudolf” is a soft poem of life. Already known as an art photographer, capturing the gardens of Dutch landscape designer Piet Oudolf in all of the seasons is truly a project suprem[...]
Review: Naila and the Uprising
— by BEV QUESTAD — Specifically, this is the story of Naila. In 1967, when she was a young girl at school, she learned her house had been blown up. She and her four sisters went home to see her father crying. She grew up with this experience of the Israeli occupation in Ramallah and [&he[...]
Review: In the Last Days of the City
— by BEV QUESTAD — “If you want to see the world in one day, ride the sun.” A cinematographic study, a film poem and a mosaic of life in Cairo during President Mubarak, Tamer El Said’s film witnesses daily life in Egypt. Though there is spartan dialogue and plot, there is a sense t[...]
3 video games that could work as movies
It is no huge secret that Hollywood has seemed to have run out of new ideas years ago, depending now almost exclusively on comic book movies, well-known franchise adaptations, reboots, prequels, spin-offs and sequels to make its money. One of the wells that Hollywood keeps coming back to when decidi[...]
Review: Return to Mount Kennedy
— by BEV QUESTAD — This film is just not what you expect it to be. Opening with gorgeous photography of quiet, pristine snow on a field of majestic peaks, it abruptly switches to the raucous grunge scene of Seattle in the ’80s, focusing in on the band Mudhoney (“Touch Me, I’m S[...]