— by BEV QUESTAD — Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette was once a charming, happy farm girl in the farmlands of France in the late 1800s. She is seduced by Willy, an older, dapper Parisian author and publisher. They set up married life in Paris where she learns that her new husband is a philandere[...]
Author Archive
Review: Leave No Trace
— by BEV QUESTAD — Hidden deep in Portland’s Forest Park, one of the largest city parks (5,100 acres) in the world, a man and his daughter live in a tent abutting a hill, cook under a tarp, and hide camouflaged in the damp, richly green forest. It is inescapably idyllic. They play ches[...]
Review: Dark Money
— by BEV QUESTAD — Political mail with lies? Campaign ad grossly misrepresenting the truth? Can just anyone with the bucks say anything in a campaign? Besides the questionable rhetoric of the two major parties, when an outside source funds a spurious campaign ad, the funding source is ca[...]
Review: Flipping the Script
— by BEV QUESTAD — If it is true that cancer is related to an immune system that has run amuck, then why are we adding toxic chemicals into patients, especially children, when it is the immune system that we need to strengthen? In his documentary, “Flipping the Script: When Parents Fig[...]
Interview: Director/Writer Patrick Wang
— by BEV QUESTAD — I’ve seen four of Patrick Wang’s exceptionally thoughtful films. In response to my request and explanation of my difficulties with his work, he magnanimously responded: “Thanks for taking the time to watch and think about all these movies. I also love your honest[...]
Review: The Grief of Others
— by BEV QUESTAD — Sometimes a film’s weakness turns out to be a strength. At first confusing and sometimes hard to figure out what is going on and who is who, “The Grief of Others” explores the loss of a baby, who really never had life, on all family members. Was it a death [&hell[...]
Review: A Bread Factory, Part Two
— by BEV QUESTAD — Hold on, ye professed intellectuals! Patrick Wang takes the time with left-over funding from “A Bread Factory, Part One” to do a second response to the real-life story of a New England community arts center in trouble. In case “Part One” wasn’t experimental e[...]
Review: A Bread Factory, Part One
— by BEV QUESTAD — The Bread Factory is a small-town experimental community art center in trouble. But it is only a microcosm of a greater danger that has invaded a town being hoodwinked by corruption on the city board and infiltrated by forces indifferent to the community good. The galv[...]
Review: On Her Shoulders
— by BEV QUESTAD — Since 2014, Nadia has had only two wishes. The first is to return to her small town. The second is to get justice. If her first wish is granted, she would be returning to a town with no men. The second has put a price on her head. “On Her […][...]
Review: Mabel, Mabel, Tiger Trainer
— by BEV QUESTAD — The lions hadn’t eaten for 24 hours and neither had their trainer. Finally in the ring, an animal moved to the wrong place and Mabel stumbled. Chaos erupted and two lions attacked her, clawing an eye from her socket and throwing a breast across the circus ring. “Ma[...]
Review: Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin
— by BEV QUESTAD — A glorious tribute to a captivatingly astute writer, “Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin” intermixes original images and motion graphics of the environments described in Le Guin books to tell the story of one of the greatest science fiction writers in the last 100 years. [...]
Review: Memoir of War
— by BEV QUESTAD — Based on Marguerite Duras’s memoir, this excellent film tells the story of those waiting for the return of their loved ones who had been taken to WWII death camps. Some arrested returned, yet others did not. What was life like for those who waited? How did they cope [...]
Review: Gavagai
— by BEV QUESTAD — A handsomely thin German businessman comes to the forested Telemark region of Norway anxious about his mission and in the first stages of grief. Surreal images of his deceased Chinese wife come to him when he is alone. She is dressed in colorful flowing Mandarin robes [...]
Review: The Testament
— by BEV QUESTAD — Yoel Halberstam has seven days to find a mass grave in Austria before construction starts. But where exactly is it, why won’t people talk and does it actually exist? Halberstam is an historian, an orthodox Jew, and a devout seeker of the truth. His crucial work is hi[...]