— by BEV QUESTAD — Like a poem to The Everglades, “River of Grass” begins with Sasha Wortzel walking the beach at night with a flashlight, hoping to see turtle tracks. If she does, maybe she will even be able to see a mother lay her eggs. She softly explains, “Every spring they nav[...]
Author Archive
Review: The Teacher
— by BEV QUESTAD — My brilliant, truly compassionate doctor thinks the Palestinians have earned all the trouble they get. He tells me they are constantly perpetrating attacks upon Israelis. Like many of us, he easily recalls the terrorist plane hijackings between 1968 to 1972, and the he[...]
Review: Sarogeto
— by BEV QUESTAD — There are two things about this gorgeously filmed and acted film that wrench your gut. There are also two things that make you exclaim … “But wait!” “Sarogeto” opens with expressive scenes, from the lone figure on a wide expanse of gray beach to a vision of p[...]
Review: The Fishing Place
— by BEV QUESTAD — Oh Norway! Your movies are so challenging to understand. Why not send us a sweet rom/com or a rich documentary? Why another angst-driven drama with themes of guilt and moral conflict? And another thing, why get so creative with your presentations, like breaking into a [...]
Review: I’m Still Here
— by BEV QUESTAD — Jolting. I thought I would just watch the first five or 10 minutes and finish the rest the next day. I quickly forgot about that as I was gripped by the series of true events that could so possibly happen in America. But jolting was also the decision on March […[...]
Review: Flow
— by BEV QUESTAD — A holy sermon. A visual splendor. A film I would long to live inside with its wildflowers, long wispy grasses swaying in the gentle breeze, and the delightful cottage with round window above the second floor beneath which a cozy bed was built-in – except for the fact[...]
Review: Old Guy
— by BEV QUESTAD — There’s a new James Bond in town and he’s not with M16. Austrian-German Christoph Waltz still has it in his 60s. He has a Sean Connery-like brogue, hair coif, handsome eye twinkle and a snazzy car. We meet him early in the film rocking out at a DJ club in […[...]
Review: Conclave
— by BEV QUESTAD — The throne of the Holy See is vacant and beside the deathbed is a chess game in progress. “Conclave” has sweeping vistas of art, painstaking replicas of intricately embroidered Cardinal costumes, and one of the best all-time endings in the history of cinema. It is [...]
The 28TH OFCS Awards: Nominees & Winners
— by BEV QUESTAD — The Online Film Critics Society (OFCS), representing nearly 300 continually vetted online film journalists representing Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Slant, AARP and more, historians, and scholars worldwide, one-third based outside the US, announced the winners of i[...]
Review: The Substance
— by BEV QUESTAD — I am obsessed with my weight, aging, hair and wrinkled looks. I see my 75-year-old self in the mirror every morning, sometimes totally disgusted. I’m just being honest. I asked my best friend, Bill, if he did the same. “Oh yes,” he sadly confided. So, women aren[...]
Review: Black Box Diaries
— by BEV QUESTAD — Her parents told her to keep quiet. Her sister begged her not to mention it. The police warned her that her career would be over if she pursued her complaint. In Japan, when you don’t want someone to know something, when you want to keep something secret, you put it [...]
Review: Wicked
— by BEV QUESTAD — The last I heard, the Wicked Witch of the West (WWW) died after Dorothy, stuck in the Land of Oz, threw water on her and she melted. Dorothy, frustratingly stuck in Oz, ended up clicking her ruby red shoes and magically returning home to Kansas with her faithful dog, T[...]
Review: The Wild Robot
— by BEV QUESTAD — A group of robots end up crash-landing. One survives and, like Robinson Crusoe or the Swiss Family Robinson, must contend with the natural world of an uninhabited (by humans), untamed jungle/forest wilderness. However, since the robot, Roz, does not need to eat and gai[...]