— by BEV QUESTAD — There is something about Keith Jarrett’s improvisational music that transports the listener to another dimension. Test it out. Click on KOLN 75. Start the video and come back to read this review while you travel to a magical place of tones and subtlety that charms yo[...]
Author Archive
Review: There Was, There Was Not
— by BEV QUESTAD — “In Armenian, we don’t begin our stories with ‘Once Upon a Time.’ We begin with ‘There Was, There Was Not.’” While not planning on that theme when she began filming, seven years later, Emily Mkrtichian uses it as the title. In 2018, Mkrtic[...]
Review: Among Neighbors
— by BEV QUESTAD — Yoav Potash went to Poland to film a commemorative event. Upon arriving, his curiosity drove him to check out the community. He finds a Jewish grave-marker in an old man’s backyard scrapheap. Then he observes that Jewish markers became foundational rocks in roads, wa[...]
Review: Sisters of Ukraine
— by BEV QUESTAD — In the early days of October 2022, two people ran a mercy mission to rescue a group of women and children waiting in a bomb shelter in western Ukraine. The day before they were to arrive, October 9, the great bridge linking Crimea with Russia and its supply line was [&[...]
Review: Soul of a Nation
— by BEV QUESTAD — What was going on in Israel during the months leading up to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack? How popular was Netanyahu then and now? The what and how are answered through a series of interviews, news clips and live videos in this eye-opening documentary. But it’s not perfect[...]
Review: Monsters Within
— by BEV QUESTAD — A loner and a vet aptly named Luke Wolf (Devin Montgomery) comes back to his hometown unemployed and an alcoholic. On his first night back, after the singer in a bar insults the bartender, we see a gruesome wild animal head with long gnashing carnivorous teeth appear i[...]
Review: Hola Frida
— by BEV QUESTAD — Drew Barrymore says she’s grown into being her own best friend. Like Drew, but more than 100 years earlier, Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) overcame great obstacles because of her inner voice, her own best friend. Created specifically for children and their families, “Hola[...]
Review: The Glassworker
— by BEV QUESTAD — Sometimes it is hard to stay true to yourself, to have the courage of your convictions, and still be accepted. Especially in times of war when you are a pacifist. From Karachi, Pakistan, via the Berklee College of Music in Boston and the influence of Ghibli Studios in [...]
Review: A Sámi Wedding
— by BEV QUESTAD — Class shame has never been so … madcap. I am hesitant to call “A Sámi Wedding” a comedy, but the staccato violin and tuba music that appears at unexpected moments claims the genre. Unlike Lucy Riccardo and Edith Bunker, serious Garen (Sara Margrethe Oskal, who h[...]
Review: John Lewis – Good Trouble
— by BEV QUESTAD — Good trouble Necessary trouble … to do what is right When his head was bashed in on March 7, 1965, America might have lost a civil rights activist. Instead, John Lewis, (Feb. 21, 1940 – July 17, 2020), recovered from his fractured skull and lived on to be a US [&he[...]
Review: My Dear Theo
— by BEV QUESTAD — You are 35, happily married, and a first-time mom with a precious 5-year-old. What would it take for you, without training, to take up with a special forces assault division? Enter Alisa Kovalenko, a Ukrainian. She is the director, cinematographer, and narrator of “M[...]
Review: Paddington in Peru
— by BEV QUESTAD — Eileen, 7 years old, joined me in viewing “Paddington in Peru.” Billed as a live-action, animated comedy, we beg to differ. Paddington does make his hilarious signature goofs, as if he’s a prehistoric being visiting 2025, but we call this Paddington film more of [...]
Review: Sudan, Remember Us
— by BEV QUESTAD — “Maha and Shajane, I’m thinking of you trapped in Khartoum between the army bombing and the Rapid Support Forces militia who terrorize and murder. Here in France, there’s not much talk about the war in Sudan,” writes Hind Meddeb. Not only not in France, but not[...]
Review: Torn
— by BEV QUESTAD — Please, no more money to buy more arms for Israel’s war on Gaza! I just finished emailing my American friends tonight to thank them for contacting our Washington senators regarding this issue. Since 1969, my friends in the Middle East have remained baffled that the U[...]