— by WILLIAM STERR — Have you ever walked into a restaurant and ordered a juicy hamburger with all the trimmings? And when the server brings the meal, you see the tempting sesame seed bun, the crisp lettuce and the ripe tomato slice, the aroma of Bermuda onion and dill pickle. But when y[...]
Archive for February, 2023
Review: Orchestrator of Storms
— by WILLIAM STERR — “Orchestrator of Storms” relates the life and career of the late French director Jean Rollin. While Rollin was a prolific writer, his supreme love was the production of films, almost exclusively in the “le cinema fantastique” genre. As such, his low budget pr[...]
Review: El Equipo
— by WILLIAM STERR — In 1976, a military coup overthrew legitimately elected Argentinian President Isabel Peron and established a military government that lasted until 1983. Shortly after the coup, American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger urged the coup leaders to destroy their enemie[...]
Review: Navalny
— by BEV QUESTAD — Early on in this remarkable Oscar-nominated documentary, Alexei Navalny is asked, “If you are killed, what message do you leave for the Russian people?” Navalny is the handsome 41-year-old lawyer who campaigned against business and government corruption in Russia. [...]
Review: Enys Men
— by WILLIAM STERR — A woman (Mary Woodvine – “Bait”) wearing a red windbreaker makes her way across blustery hills of heather and sedge, then down to the edge of a cliff where six strange flowers grow. These are rare plants on this Cornish island and her job is to measure the temp[...]
Review: Till
— by WILLIAM STERR — Most adult in America are aware of the story of Emmett Till. He was a young Black American from Chicago who traveled to Mississippi in 1955 to visit relatives. There, he ran afoul of southern sentiments and was brutally murdered by a gang of white men. They believed [...]
Review: Motherland
— by BEV QUESTAD — What genocide began on Sept. 27, 2020? I posed that question to a social justice group who tracks this kind of thing. One person was sure of the answer, correctly, but the other 12 disagreed, asserting his answer couldn’t be true because they hadn’t heard of it. Az[...]
Review: Good Night Oppy
— by BEV QUESTAD — “Good Night Oppy” is a surprisingly-entertaining film about exploration on Mars and the hunt for water. It won the 2022 Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards for best director, best science/nature documentary, best narration, best score, and best overall doc[...]
Review: Maybe I Do
— by BEV QUESTAD — Oh boy! Right after fed-up Howard (Richard Gere) breaks up with his man-eating, sex-starved lover, Monica (Susan Sarandon), she threatens revenge. And right after shy Grace (Diane Keaton) attempts a hotel encounter with demoralized Sam (William Macy), she has regrets. [...]
Review: The Ghosts of Monday
— by WILLIAM STERR — “Oh my ******* God.” The above is the best line from the movie “The Ghosts of Monday”, and it pretty well sums up this 78 minutes of nonsense. Actually filmed on the island of Cyprus, which has it’s own sordid past, this poorly conceived, written, directed,[...]
Review: When You Finish Saving the World
— by WILLIAM STERR — Disfunctional families. We all know one, maybe even live in one. They are certainly the fodder for endless films whether they be gritty noir flicks, lost in the complexity of modern day society films or gay holiday affairs, we’ve all seen them and watched, fascinat[...]