— by RON WILKINSON — Talya Larvie’s military dramedy “Zero Motivation” is fresh, untamed and funny. This is amazing, considering it shreds one of the top military organizations in the world. Featuring the women of mandatory conscription, the setting is a desolate Israeli mi[...]
Author Archive
Review: The Homesman
— by RON WILKINSON — The opening scenes of “The Homesman” are as bleak as death itself. Parched plains, patched together clapboard houses, poverty so deep it rises up to greet you at the front door, and wind that never, ever, lets up. Tommy Lee Jones’ second feature film sh[...]
Review: Bad Hair
— by RON WILKINSON — Nine-year-old Junior is on the war path with his mother. What else is new? The ageless story of kid versus parent is told again, this time in the tough streets of the projects in Caracas, Venezuela. His mother, Marta, has lost her job and is in the process of giving [...]
Review: Camp X-Ray
— by RON WILKINSON — Peter Sattler’s directorial debut is as bare and exposed as a prisoner in a cell. A stripped down film about warehousing human beings and waiting for the next step. The next step for the inmate is release, and it may come sooner than the next step for the jaile[...]
Review: Diplomacy
— by RON WILKINSON — After watching Volker Schlöndorff’s (Oscar-winning German director of “The Tin Drum”) touching, scary and occasionally funny rendition of an imaginary meeting that decided the fate of Paris, you may never watch “My Dinner With Andre” in the same way again.[...]
Review: Before I Go To Sleep
— by RON WILKINSON — Nicole Kidman gives it her best shot but there is simply not enough going on in Rowan Joffe’s psychological drama to make it work. The lack of plot is aggravated by the bizarre use of jarring loud noises and the guessing games the audience goes through trying to un[...]
Review: Interstellar
— by RON WILKINSON — Christopher Nolan’s $165 million IMAX space lollapalooza is all the better for starting in the most modest of environments. It is some time in the future, some place in the American Midwest. Things are not going well, according to the elderly respondents. Blights a[...]
Review: The Heart Machine
— by RON WILKINSON — Writer/director Zachary Wigon’s essay on the vicissitudes of internet love starts innocently enough. A quiet, intimate conversation in the privacy of Cody’s (John Gallagher Jr. of “The Newsroom” and “Short Term 12”) East Village apartment with a possible [...]
Review: The Canal
— by RON WILKINSON — Film archivist David (Rupert Evans) smells a rat. Maybe it is that his wife, Alice (Hannah, Hoekstra) seems distracted by her business associate, Alex (Carl Shaaban), and seems to be pulling away from David. That could be because she is having an affair with Alex. Th[...]
Review: The Decent One (Der Anständige)
— by RON WILKINSON — “The Decent One,” Vanessa Lapa’s riveting documentary (co-written with Ori Weisbrod) reveling the life of SS-leader Heinrich Himmler is, if nothing else, a remarkable collection of archival footage. Although some (most?) of this footage has been seen be[...]
Review: Citizenfour
— by RON WILKINSON — Almost a year and a half after filmmaker Laura Poitras’ and journalist Glenn Greenwald first met with whistle-blower Edward Snowden, his name has become a household word. Snowden contacted Poitras and asked her to be a part of that historic meeting from the fir[...]
Review: The Blue Room (aka La chambre bleue)
— by RON WILKINSON — Directed and written by Mathieu Amalric (co-written by leading lady Stéphanie Cléau), “The Blue Room” is superficially a cautionary tale about marital infidelity and, on a deeper level, a psychological study in promises made, and implied. Based on Georges Simen[...]
Review: Purgatorio
— by RON WILKINSON — “Purgatorio: A Journey Into the Heart of the Border” — Rodrigo Reyes’ simmering treatise on the human condition in the worst of all worlds — starts from the beginning. Children laugh and play, full of good intentions and dreams of the fu[...]
Review: Fishing Without Nets
— by RON WILKINSON — Writer/director Cutter Hodierne took home the Dramatic Directing Award at the 2014 Sundance Festival for “Fishing Without Nets,” a gutsy inside look at desperation, despair and deliverance. Inevitably, comparisons will be made to Paul Greengrass’ 20[...]