— by WILLIAM STERR — When you hear the word “Athens,” what comes to mind? The cradle of democracy (as long as you were a free male citizen)? Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey? Alexander the Great? Philosophers Socrates and Plato? The Parthenon (whose marble sculptures were swiped by the D[...]
Author Archive
Review: The Last of the Winthrops
— by WILLIAM STERR — Who among us has not wondered what secrets our ancestral past might hold? The advent of inexpensive gene sequencing has brought many pleasant surprises, as many disappointments, and some real misery. Still, wouldn’t it be wonderful to discover you were the great gr[...]
Review: Infinite Sea
— by WILLIAM STERR — When Portuguese writer/director Carlos Amaral (“Por Diabos”) sat down to work out the story of “Infinite Sea,” I’m sure he found the idea fascinating and full of promise, as did I when I first heard of his film. The story takes place in a bleak, near empty [...]
Review: Back to the Drive-In
— by WILLIAM STERR — When I was a kid back in Green Bay, Wisc., the family would pile into the station wagon and go out for an evening of movies at the drive-in. In our case, it was the Starlite Drive-In, which had opened in 1949. A few years later, it was my high […][...]
Review: Juniper
— by WILLIAM STERR — Juniper – a genus of hardy aromatic evergreen trees or shrubs of the cypress family, distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere. The “berry” – actually a fleshy cone – of the juniper is used to flavor gin. Sam (George Ferrier – “Kiwi Christmas”) i[...]
Review: Living
— by WILLIAM STERR — In 1843, a British writer published a story about a man who, in his ambition for a secure life in business, drove away those around him and hollowed out that life. Eventually, faced with the threat of his own death, he changed his ways and began reconnecting: doing g[...]
Review: Goliath
— by WILLIAM STERR — This is a difficult, even infuriating, movie. Most of us are familiar with the story of how the tobacco industry fought for decades to obscure the fact about tobacco use, addiction and health issues. We’ve seen the same thing with fossil fuels and opioids. French w[...]
Review: The Whale
— by WILLIAM STERR — In 2012, Darren Aronofsky (“Mother!”), attended a performance of “The Whale,” a play by Samuel Hunter. A decade later, he directed a movie version with Hunter as screenwriter and Brendan Fraser (“Gods and Monsters”) starring as the protagonist, Ch[...]
Review: Alchemy of the Spirit
— by WILLIAM STERR — Oliver Black (Xander Berkeley – “Butcher’s Crossing) is an artist. He works out of a studio in his home in a village in Vermont. One fall morning, he wakes to find his wife, Evelyn (Sarah Clarke – “Coda”) dead beside him. His trauma is intense – she[...]
Review: Marlowe
— by WILLIAM STERR — Let me introduce you to something interesting. We’ll call it “The Case of Three Marlowes.” Once upon a time in California, way back in 1939, a detective fiction writer by the name of Raymond Chandler, published a novel, “Farewell, My Lovely,” featuring the [...]
Review: Wolf Garden
— 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[...]
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: 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[...]