— by RON WILKINSON — Arne Birkenstock’s fascinating documentary “Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery” is a skillful and entertaining examination the latest, and what may be the greatest, con game of all time. Starting in the 1970’s, Wolfgang Beltracchi painted works of art fal[...]
Author Archive
Review: Meru
— by RON WILKINSON — “Meru” may be one of the best mountain climbing movies ever made. The insights provided through personal interviews with climbers Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk, and the narrative by Jon Krakauer, make this film a tightly-woven tale competing with the [...]
Review: Phoenix
— by RON WILKINSON — Director Christian Petzold re-unites with leads Nina Hoss and Ronald Zehrfeld in the multiple award-winning mystery neo-noir “Phoenix.” Petzold and Hoss enjoyed multiple awards for their previous efforts in “Wolfsburg,” “Toter Mann,” “Yella” a[...]
Review: The Overnight
— by RON WILKINSON — Patrick Brice is not going to sugar coat it. We are messed up and we better figure why and learn to get on with our lives before it is too late. This is a heavy message for a film maker to project in his second feature film. But he really […][...]
Review: Irrational Man
— by RON WILKINSON — This year’s Woody Allen film is a murder mystery. Actually, it is not much of a mystery since we know all about the murder. The only mystery left is to see if the killer gets away with it or not. Sort of a “Columbo” episode without Peter Falk. The first [&helli[...]
Review: Ricki and the Flash
— by RON WILKINSON — Now for something completely different. Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme (“The Silence of the Lambs”) teams up with Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody (“Juno”) in a film featuring Oscar-winning superstar Meryl Streep as the aging rock band front woma[...]
Review: Dark Places
— by RON WILKINSON — Charlize Theron plays Libby Day, a woman approaching middle age with a terrible secret. Twenty five years earlier, her family was murdered in the night. As one of only two survivors of the killings, Libby was able to support the conviction of her devil-worshipping br[...]
Review: Best of Enemies
— by RON WILKINSON — On the surface, Robert Gordon’s and Morgan Neville’s documentary “Best of Enemies” is about a series of nationally televised debates in 1968 between the liberal Gore Vidal and the conservative William F. Buckley Jr. As it turns out, there is a lot mor[...]
Review: Cartel Land
— by RON WILKINSON — With “Cartel Land,” film-maker Matthew Heineman obtains unmatched access to the Mexican drug business and executes a heart rending story of the fight locals are waging against the megalithic force of drug cartels. The film starts out with a riveting look [...]
Review: The Outrageous Sophie Tucker
— by RON WILKINSON — Perhaps 1 percent of today’s film viewing audience has ever heard of Sophie Tucker. That is too bad, because she came from a time when stars were born not out of technical special effects, computerized sound producing and outrageous tabloid headlines, but out of a [...]
Review: Mr. Holmes
— by RON WILKINSON — An aging Sherlock Holmes (Ian McKellen) is still solving cases despite galloping senility gaining on his senses by leaps and bounds. Apparently, even fictional heroes are subject to time and tides, as the magnificent background of the white cliffs of Dover would sugg[...]
Review: Court
— by RON WILKINSON — Writer/director Chaitanya Tamhane’s debut feature film is more allegory than story. The characters in the movie almost hover above the meanings developed from scene to scene. On the surface, “Court” is a film about a performing artist who is arrested fo[...]
Review: Southpaw
— by RON WILKINSON — This boxing tale splashes the latest hi-tech boxing sequences in front of the audience in no holds barred graphic violence, but the film is saved by one key performance. Twelve-year old-Oona Lawrence punches through the ordinary passive child role to put out some wor[...]
Review: The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed …
— by RON WILKINSON — Felix Herngren’s comedy “The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared” has made a big splash in European markets but is going to have tougher going in the USA. Although the film will probably unseat the reigning champion “The Girl W[...]