— by BEV QUESTAD — After viewing this film you’re going to want to immediately book your trip to the sunny Maldive Islands. Why? They’re a gorgeous group of over 1000 little islands in paradise filled with palm trees, colorful flowers, warm water lagoons, and exotic, secluded[...]
Author Archive
Review: Patagonia
— by BEV QUESTAD — Everyone is on a journey with at least one secret. Two road trips, one set in Wales and the other in Patagonia, have another interesting connection. In 1865 about 160 Welsh people immigrated to Argentina to start a new life free of “the poverty of their hill farms an[...]
Review: Eternity (aka Tee rak)
— by BEV QUESTAD — Feel the stillness as you gaze at the rich dirt after harvest and the faint mountains in a haze. There is no movement, no sound or whisper even from nature. Then, from a distance, comes the crackle of a motorcycle. It comes into the silent scene and departs, leaving yo[...]
Review: Elena (aka Елена)
— by BEV QUESTAD — This is the story of a marriage between a cold, penny-pinching Russian capitalist conservative and his working class wife. In “Elena,” a successful retired capitalist married the nurse he met while recovering in a hospital from appendicitis. He apparently married h[...]
Review: Where Do We Go Now?
— by BEV QUESTAD — A funeral stomp in the midst of the unrest in Lebanon sets the stage for this Middle Eastern musical comedy. The women, chanting, stomping and swaying in unison set the stage for the best solutions to conflict you’re ever going to see on film. Set in a traditional li[...]
Review: Bull Head (aka Rundskop)
— by BEV QUESTAD — The best thing about “Bull Head” is that it focuses on the hormone abuse in the meat industry. Yeah, that is the very best thing. The worst thing is that it picks a big infected scab open on man’s inhumanity to man. It’s about bullying — bullying on[...]
Jim Lehrer Talks Docs in Portland
— by BEV QUESTAD — Would you like to know what’s going on inside a politician’s head when he’s in front of the camera in a political debate? What’s the strategy walking in? What’s the disappointment walking out? In Jim Lehrer’s documentaries, George W. Bush reveals his[...]
Short Film: A River in Our Own Backyard
— by BEV QUESTAD — “One of the things I like about the river is how it strips people down to who they really are.” Set to meandering, gentle music, that statement opens this short that showcases the 2012 Paddle Oregon kayak and canoe trip down Oregon’s Willamette River. Visions of [...]
Under Review: ‘Hipsters’ (aka ‘Stilyagi’)
— by BEV QUESTAD — For a swingin’ time take a trip into Moscow, 1955. Little did we know there was an underground movement in love with the music, food, fashion and finger snappin’ of American pop culture. Emulating idealized American free expression and individualism, this small[...]
Under Review: ‘Lula, Son of Brazil’
— by BEV QUESTAD — Would distributing checks to families who kept their children in school provide a greater boon to an economy than investing in stock portfolios? Would deploying soldiers to protect the environment at home rather than pillage one across a foreign sea bring greater natio[...]
Under Review: ‘Le Havre’
— by BEV QUESTAD — In a time of increasing economic fears, the words of the hero in “Le Havre” are a sad commentary about his position as a shoeshine man: “There are better professions, but besides shepherds, it’s closest to the people and the last to respect The Sermon on th[...]
Under Review: ‘Mysteries of Lisbon’
— by BEV QUESTAD — Life at times is cruel and unjust. Raul Ruiz delivers this message in his gorgeous film with period extravagance and beauty. Life stories of passion and grief are recounted by the characters, explaining what happened in their surprisingly interconnected lives in Lisbon[...]
Under Review: ‘The Chef of South Polar’ (aka Nankyoku ryôrinin)
— by BEV QUESTAD — Eight Japanese men in the prime of their lives are sent to a desolate outpost deep in Antarctica for 414 days. Their job is to mine ice cores that document climate change through the last 300,000 years. But 414 days is a long time. Sometimes the sun never sets and [&he[...]
Under Review: ‘Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie’
— by BEV QUESTAD — “It kind of feels like kind of a rap of what I’ve been doing. It really is a nice completion. I can just go home and die now.” That’s what David Suzuki says about his 2009 lecture at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. However, at 73, Suzuki is [&h[...]