— by WILLIAM STERR — In 1947, the United Nations voted to partition the British Mandate of Palestine. The following year, the State of Israel was proclaimed. Both events were opposed by the Arabs. At the time of Israel’s founding, the population of Palestine, estimated at 1.7 million, [...]
Author Archive
Review: Tiger 24
— by WILLIAM STERR — Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?[...]
Review: Nope
— by WILLIAM STERR — At first, it appears that Jordan Peele (“Get Out”) has given us a two-fer: two separate stories for the price of one. The opening story is about an horrendous incident on the site of a family oriented TV comedy, Gordy’s Home, about a human-like chimpanzee, Gord[...]
Review: My Childhood, My Country
— by WILLIAM STERR — On September 11, 2001, the radical Islamic organization, al Qaida, attacked financial and military targets in mainland United States. What followed was the “War on Terror,” created and administered first by the Bush Administration, and on to the present day. The [...]
Recap: 2022 HP Lovecraft Film Festival
— by WILLIAM STERR — “The only festival that understands.” When the haze-dimmed sun lights days grown short, and the gibbous moon illuminates lengthening nights, the chill air is filled with cries of “Cthulhu fhtagn! Ph’nglui mglw’nfah Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’na[...]
Review: Tubular Bells: 50th Anniversary
— by WILLIAM STERR — Voiceover by narrator Bill Nighy (“Page Eight”): “In 1973, a then-unknown 19-year-old musician produced an album that would change the face of music … forever. That musician was Mike Oldfield; the album, “Tubular Bells.” So begins this documentary on the [...]
Review: Blonde
— by WILLIAM STERR — In 2000, Joyce Carol Oates published her biographical novel “Blonde,” which was a dramatic imagining of the career of Marilyn Monroe. Oates has referred to her subject as “my Moby Dick, the powerful galvanizing image about which an epic might be constructed, wi[...]
Review: The Accursed
— by WILLIAM STERR — It is a dark and stormy night. A girl scratches a cross into the trunk of a massive old tree, its branches festooned with Spanish moss. A young woman joins her and together they walk toward an isolated cabin, firelight flickering in its window. “Don’t come inside[...]
Review: Hatching
— by WILLIAM STERR — Tinja (Siiri Solalinna) is so lucky. She is a member of a perfect Finnish family. That’s what her vlogger mother claims. She lives in a perfectly decorated house with a beautiful mother, doting father and sweet younger brother. At least that’s what the family vlo[...]
Review: This Land
— by WILLIAM STERR — “This Land” is not so much a film as it is an ode to the people who make up the American electorate. Director Matthew Palmer (“Breakdown”) assembled a team of more than 50 filmmakers to shoot footage of selected people across the country on Nov. 3, 2020. That[...]
Review: Speak No Evil
— by WILLIAM STERR — Bjorn, Louise, and their little girl, Agnes, are on vacation in Italy, enjoying the sites and the company of other vacationers. Among those they meet are a Dutch couple — Patrick, Karin, and their little partially mute son, Abel. Abel and Agnes are of similar a[...]
Review: Four Winters
— by WILLIAM STERR — On Sept. 1, 1939, Adolph Hitler’s Nazi Germany invaded Poland, triggering World War II. The Nazis had been oppressing various peoples, especially Jews, within Germany since 1933. Now, as they drove through Poland and into other nations, the mass roundup and subsequ[...]
Review: My Imaginary Country
— by WILLIAM STERR — On September 11 (sound familiar?), 1973, the democratically elected government of Chile fell to the forces of the Chilean military, headed by General Augusto Pinochet. The violent coup, fomented by the United States Central Intelligence Agency, also resulted in the s[...]
Review: We Are Gathered Here Today
— by WILLIAM STERR — Henry Stone is a tough man. Everyone says he is as strong as a bull. But two days ago he was admitted to St. Maria’s Hospital with severe COVID-19. Today he is dying, and his family is gathering via Google Meet to say their farewells. The above few sentences are [&[...]