— by BEV QUESTAD — It was 2015 when Barack Obama approved the bombing of an Islamic terrorist center in Libya. Here, Noureddine Chouchane, a militant commander connected to two deadly attacks in neighboring Tunisia, was killed. Surviving were his wife and his wife’s sister. “Four Dau[...]
Author Archive
Review: Nimona
— by BEV QUESTAD — Who’s bad, who’s good, and what’s the truth? These are life’s questions. But, as this film says, “If you want a happily ever after you are going to have to wait, because the monsters are always out there.” Isn’t that the truth? “Nimona” is an animatio[...]
Review: American Symphony
— by BEV QUESTAD — This raw, intimate documentary reveals the most creative, versatile and eclectic musician of our time, Jon Batiste. From exposure to his personality on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” I was expecting a laid-back, fun, light-hearted guy. But his story runs mor[...]
27TH OFCS Awards: Nominees & Winners
— by BEV QUESTAD — The Online Film Critics Society (OFCS), representing nearly 300 continually vetted online film journalists, historians and scholars worldwide, with one-third based outside the US, has announced the winners of its 2023 film awards. Founded in 1997, members of the OFCS e[...]
Review: Oppenheimer
— by BEV QUESTAD — Historically, tides of American freedom and then its reversal have flooded and ebbed with crashing force. Lives can be lifted or ruined. For me, this is the foundational story behind Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.” Why it surfaces now is an apt cautionary tale[...]
Review: 32 Sounds
— by BEV QUESTAD — Since sound is vibration and moves out like tiny ripples, then, if I understood correctly, all sounds ever occurring are all still out there moving in perpetuity: my mother’s voice and piano playing, my father’s laugh, my son’s first cry and the first big bang. T[...]
Review: Bobi Wine: The People’s President
— by BEV QUESTAD — Little Richard meets Nelson Mandela – that’s Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, popularly known as Bobi Wine. With his energetic band, courageous Wine exposes injustice and corruption in Uganda as a musical sensation and political revolutionary. This pits him dangerously [...]
Review: The Boy and the Heron
— by BEV QUESTAD — At age 82, Hayao Miyazaki, the world’s greatest animator, has created another film of exceptional artistic presentation. Ten years ago, “The Wind Rises,” thought to be his last film, was nominated for an Oscar, but lost to Disney’s “Frozen.” Now, “The Boy[...]
Review: The Mission
— by BEV QUESTAD — Oh troubling waters of misguided humans and good intentions, how and when can we distinguish between the calling of God and the Sirens of Titan? In a classic modern tragedy, John Chau found himself drawn inexorably to proclaim the gospel to the last isolated tribe on e[...]
Review: Ferrari
— by BEV QUESTAD — Just the name Ferrari immediately evokes observations about the car: fast, red and expensive. With a few red flags, the man behind this famous fine-tuned vehicle was known to be calculated, distant, and autocratic. “Ferrari” is based on the revealing yet stark stor[...]
Review: American Fiction
— by BEV QUESTAD — An African-American author and professor with a PhD, a genius with excellent writing ability, crafts an acclaimed novel. Another author, feigning he is a fugitive from the FBI, misspells words and uses a vernacular dialect. He writes about a rough, poverty-ridden Black[...]
Review: The Boys in the Boat
— by BEV QUESTAD — It’s 1936 and Joe Rantz (Callum Turner) lives in a Seattle Depression-era Hooverville. He stands with men in a soup line for one ladle of thin gruel. He mother died when he was fourand his father left the family when he was 14. He’s a quiet, muscular guy used to [&[...]
Review: The Teachers’ Lounge
— by BEV QUESTAD — Maybe it’s difficult being a movie star who is badgered by press, a police person who is wearing a body camera or a university president defining the First Amendment before Congress, but just try being a schoolteacher dealing with misbehavior correctly in the classro[...]