— by RON WILKINSON — Screened at the 39th Seattle International Film Festival, Taiwanese director Chao-jen Hsu’s quirky rom-com Together is a fun look at Taiwan’s Gen Y young adults. Mobile, connected and ready to rip, these kids are like army ants on the move. Carrying their communi[...]
Author Archive
Review: Pretty Butterflies
— by RON WILKINSON — Sara Podda and Maya Mulas star in Salvatore Mereu’s new wave Italian neorealist romp in small town Italy. Not unlike small town America, the big dreams of two young girls are hemmed in on all sides by the small mindedness of their provincial environment. Screened a[...]
Review: The Act of Killing
— by RON WILKINSON — Every now and then, a film comes along that defies description. Typically these films are so horrible and so irresistible that the viewer wants to forget he or she never saw the film, but is terrified that may be impossible. When Werner Herzog & Errol Morris tea[...]
Review: HairBrained
— by RON WILKINSON — Screened at this year’s yeasty Brooklyn Film Festival, emerging director Billy Kent’s new “HairBrained” is a funny, if not hilarious, exploration of the college eccentric theme. Having taken a few years off since his modestly received “The Oh in Ohio,” Ke[...]
Review: Frances Ha
— by RON WILKINSON — Greta Gerwig (“Greenburg”) comes flying out of the screen and into your heart in this surprisingly disarming and genuine coming of age story by Noah Baumbach (co-written by Gerwig). Threatening at first to become just another self-absorbed New York poor girl who [...]
Review: Violet & Daisy
— by RON WILKINSON — Anybody who watched 2009’s astounding “Precious” knows that when screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher digs into the far corners of dysfunctional women’s minds, he comes up with eye-opening realities. In “Violet & Daisy,” he not only writes the screenplay, [...]
Review: Yesterday Never Ends
— by RON WILKINSON — Screened at the 39th Seattle International Film Festival, Spanish director Isabel Coixet’s atmospheric dialog of love and loss is, for better or for worse, textbook film school. At 108 minutes, this film will be about 30 minutes too long for the majority of America[...]
Classic Magicians Reappear in Ricky Jay Film
— by RON WILKINSON — In the performing arts world today, there are two kinds of magic. The best known kind is the arena magic of Penn & Teller and the other big Las Vegas and Atlantic City acts. These acts are massive productions with massive attendance and, yes, they make massive m[...]
Review: The English Teacher
— by RON WILKINSON — Julianne Moore plays Linda Sinclair, a high school English teacher in the small town of Kingston, Pa., who is almost believable as the town spinster (she has a problem with uncontrollable sexiness). Unmarried and seeking refuge in her job, her apartment and her two c[...]
Review: Shadow Dancer
— by RON WILKINSON — It is 1993 in Belfast and the Irish Republican Army has not yet been brought to the table. Although voices within the movement are calling for peace, the hardliners hang on, and they hang on hard. They have been forged into the most ruthless fighting force in the wor[...]