— by WILLIAM STERR — It’s winter, but there is no snow. A middle-aged couple sits alone in a pew as a priest officiates at a funeral for their young daughter. They stand with a few mourners at the graveside; together they clutch a white rose. Things are not as they seem. While his wife[...]
Archive for May, 2022
Review: Fire in the Mountains
— by BEV QUESTAD — A sari-clad woman, Chandra, walks across a one-lane northern Indian bridge leading into Sarmoli, a tiny village close to both the Tibetan and Nepali borders. She successfully competes with a hotel hawk for a family just off a bus. Then she sets their suitcase on top of[...]
Review: Castro’s Spies
— by WILLIAM STERR — In 1898, the United States fought a war against Spain. At the conclusion of that war, the US seized the Philippines, Puerto Rico and smaller Pacific islands that had been part of the Spanish Empire. Cuba was not seized but remained occupied until 1902. From then unti[...]
Review: Tigre Gente
— by BEV QUESTAD — When does a documentary become a thriller? It’s when the camera is allowed to follow a real-life, unscripted man-hunt with passion, risk, and danger. Elizabeth Unger, adventurist and National Geographic Explorer, convinced Chief Protection Officer Marcos Uzquiano to [...]
Review: A.K. Tolstoy’s A Taste of Blood
— by WILLIAM STERR — What if your father, with the aim of protecting you, went out one night, and came back the next night as a monster – the very thing he tried to protect you from? A. K. Tolstoy, older second cousin to the more famous Leo Tolstoy, was a literary giant of […][...]
Review: Broken Wings
— by BEV QUESTAD — Hot Springs is just a normal little town in Arkansas. Jayne’s house perches right on the town highway in a two-story faux antebellum home with porch and rafters from which she can hang her wooden vulture cut-outs. She is famous in town for rescuing an injured vulture[...]
Review: MAU
— by WILLIAM STERR — “Think about the number of times you can close your eyes and open them in a space where you only see the natural world; and you realize that it’s almost never; it’s almost zero. That what you’re experiencing, your life is a designed life. And the beauty of th[...]
Review: Happening
— by BEV QUESTAD — In college, back in the ’60s, a friend attending school on a complete scholarship got pregnant. She heard of a place she could go to in another state. Friends pooled available cash, someone had a car, and she was back two days later, white, gaunt and weak. It tur[...]
Review: Big vs. Small
— by BEV QUESTAD — The tallest waves in the world are found in Nazaré, Portugal. The biggest wave ever recorded there was 80 feet tall. One of the smallest surfers, at 5-foot-1, is determined to conquer both these mega waves and her own demons. Haunting music with a sitar-like sound lur[...]
Review: The Ants and the Grasshopper
— by WILLIAM STERR — “The Ants and the Grasshopper” is a documentary that will appear at the “EarthX Film Festival in mid-May in Dallas, Texas. The festival’s mission is to “bring awareness of the environmental crisis in order to create sincere action on both an individual and [...]
Review: A Thousand Little Cuts
— by WILLIAM STERR — This is a disturbing movie. A movie that is difficult to watch. It is also a movie that deals with a very difficult subject – one that we as a society need to be reminded of again and again and again. The film opens with a woman jogging. She jogs […][...]
Review: Box of Rain
— by BEV QUESTAD — It’s 1985 and Lonnie Frazier is a very pretty high school girl. She goes out in a car with boys she’s known since grade school. Then something goes haywire. This one incident, though a hyper-example, is a core metaphor for the betrayal one can experience in formati[...]
Review: The Will to See
— by BEV QUESTAD — The film begins with a quiet pan of New York City and Central Park while a French voice-over intones, “This is where it all began. I am in New York City to defend the Kurdish cause and I receive a message from a stranger alerting me to the plight of […][...]
Review: Black Box
— by WILLIAM STERR — You are on European Airlines Flight 24, from Dubai to Paris, just flying into French airspace. It’s 7:24 a.m. and breakfast is being served in all classes. You ask for coffee. Then any flyer’s nightmare begins. The plane begins to descend, rapidly. This is what y[...]