— by BEV QUESTAD — “What is God’s will? How do we interpret it? How are we to understand it and act upon it?” asks Father Dunbar (Colman Domingo) of his congregation. But he also sits on the Transplant Committee, where he became a new voting member at the behest of a top investor. [...]
Author Archive
Review: Mission: Hebron
— by BEV QUESTAD — Blockades are randomly set up each day causing traffic chaos, children and adults are routinely apprehended and body searched, houses are ransacked and searched in the middle of the night without a warrant and without soldiers even knowing what they are looking for. Ha[...]
Review: Mission: Joy – Finding Happiness in Troubled Times
— by BEV QUESTAD — HH Dalai Lama hosted Archbishop Desmond Tutu at The Tibetan Children’s Village, a boarding school/orphanage in Dharamsala, North India, for children from Tibet. Each child stood up to tell the story of how he or she arrived at this school. One girl spoke of being hid[...]
Review: Hamlet/Horatio
— by BEV QUESTAD — Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” (circa 1600) is the most performed of all Shakespeare’s plays but mysteries and scholarly debates swirl around it. One of the reasons is because Shakespeare’s plays do not include the action occurring on the stage, only the words. T[...]
Review: Two Gods
— by BEV QUESTAD — Hanif is out of prison and rocking to beat music as he nails and sands each coffin he constructs. More solemnly, he also washes bodies, as is Muslim culture, before they enter his simple pine boxes. Hanif’s employment is an example of how helpful the Muslim leadershi[...]
Review: Blast Beat
— by BEV QUESTAD — It seems that everyone wants to come to the United States for some sort of economic relief. In exchange they leave their homes, language, family, friends, careers, land, and all that is familiar. Is the trade-off really worth it? Writers Esteban Arango and Erick Castri[...]
Review: Los Hermanos/The Brothers
— by BEV QUESTAD — Tender playing and soul-inspired composing spear the center of your soul. Music this joyful and knowing is rare. Perhaps the product of extraordinary choices or maybe just DNA, this story of Ilmar and Aldo Gavilán is a tour de force The title music played at the end o[...]
Review: In Our Mothers’ Gardens
— by BEV QUESTAD — Presented as a chapter book, “In Our Mothers’ Gardens” is a look at the maternal history of several accomplished black women. Each woman knows her maternal history calls the name of her mother, who she was a daughter of … until she comes to the end of the t[...]
Review: The Perfect Candidate
— by BEV QUESTAD — The US wide-release of “The Perfect Candidate” has me worried. How can a drama about female repression in Saudi Arabia, filmed and produced in Saudi Arabia, notorious for said repression, pass a Saudi script censor and be submitted as the country’s Academy Award [...]
Review: Francesco
— by BEV QUESTAD — “Go into the world and preach the gospel … and if necessary, use words.” — St. Francis Assisi.” This is the quote, on a black background, that begins and reverberates throughout “Francesco.” Despite Pope Francis’s announcement that he was naming him[...]
Review: My Octopus Teacher
— by BEV QUESTAD — Unlikely. It’s simply unlikely that anything about a skin diver in temperatures as cold as 46 degrees Fahrenheit and his obsessive compulsive disorder with a wild common octopus are going to either inspire or move me. And yet, several days and innumerable Google sear[...]
Review: Percy vs. Goliath
— by BEV QUESTAD — We’re in a protestant church, maybe Lutheran, in Saskatchewan, Canada, during the Sunday morning singing of a hymn when a skinny old man with odd hair notices darkness out the window. He quietly gets up, taps a man on the shoulder in the front row, and they leave dow[...]
Review: Kiss the Ground
— by BEV QUESTAD — Woody Harrelson announces he’s given up on fixing the environment. It’s simply too vast a problem with each solution seemingly causing more problems. But then he asks, “What if there is another path?” What does he mean? This past week, churches celebrated Earth[...]
Review: Da 5 Bloods
— by BEV QUESTAD — Vietnam, like slavery, is a scar on the American conscience. How four guys, approximately 50 years after serving together in Southeast Asia, were affected by their service is the story of this intense, ambitious film by the greatest director, Spike Lee. Lee brings toge[...]