— by WILLIAM STERR — This history of the Barbie Doll opens with a scene from a Barbie convention. An elaborate Barbie Doll in a custom dress is being auctioned off. It goes for $4,250 and the buyer, in her own Barbie inspired clothing, is ecstatic. From there a montage continues from Bar[...]
Author Archive
Review: The Stroll
— by WILLIAM STERR — This is the story of the trans women sex workers who spent parts of their lives working the streets of New York City’s meatpacking district – an area informally know as “The Stroll.” These women, from a variety of backgrounds and of different races, each foun[...]
Review: Renfield
— by WILLIAM STERR — Nicolas Cage: Oscar winner, Golden Globe winner, SAG winner, all time Blockbuster Entertainment (yeah, the video store people) award winner, and frequent Razzie nominee. You never know who you’re going to get with a Nick Cage movie – in fact, in “The Unbearable[...]
Review: Mad Heidi
— by WILLIAM STERR — In my avocation as a movie reviewer, I often – too often – screen films that, for lack of a better word, are pretty “cheesy.” Outrageous dialogue, over the top acting, fantastic settings, impossible premises, outlandish costumes, and so on. This one takes the[...]
Review: Scarlet
— by WILLIAM STERR — What will eventually be known as World War I is finally over. Columns of exhausted, ragged French soldiers straggle along the horizon. One man separates himself from the others and carries on alone. He is Raphael (Raphael Thiery – “L’homme d’argil[...]
Review: Peppergrass
— by WILLIAM STERR — Rough times. The corona virus is raging in Canada and businesses are shut down. Eula Baek’s (Chantelle Han – “Circle of Steel”) grandfather has died, and the restaurant he owned is going under. She needs cash from somewhere, and boyfriend Morris Weiss (Ch[...]
Review: The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster
— by WILLIAM STERR — We are all familiar with the story of Frankenstein. Many of us are familiar with the fact that Mary Shelley wrote it as a moralistic tale, not just a horror story. That important aspect is too often lost in the film translations, with “Man was never meant to play G[...]
Review: Assassin Club
— by WILLIAM STERR — Our story begins in Prague, Czechoslovakia, with the assassination of a wealthy man and near-killing of his young daughter, who is saved by her uncle. Flash forward seven years to Ljubljana, Slovenia. It’s nighttime and an assassin waits in an upper floor of a buil[...]
Review: Hell’s Half Acre
— by WILLIAM STERR — It’s rough making a living as an urban explorer of mysterious abandoned buildings. However, Marcus (Quinn Nehr – “Sheltered”) and his small band of fellow videocasters are doing their best. Girlfriend Jessie (Brynn Beveridge – “That Night”) want[...]
Review: Broadway
— by WILLIAM STERR — When you hear the word “Athens,” what comes to mind? The cradle of democracy (as long as you were a free male citizen)? Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey? Alexander the Great? Philosophers Socrates and Plato? The Parthenon (whose marble sculptures were swiped by the D[...]
Review: The Last of the Winthrops
— by WILLIAM STERR — Who among us has not wondered what secrets our ancestral past might hold? The advent of inexpensive gene sequencing has brought many pleasant surprises, as many disappointments, and some real misery. Still, wouldn’t it be wonderful to discover you were the great gr[...]
Review: Infinite Sea
— by WILLIAM STERR — When Portuguese writer/director Carlos Amaral (“Por Diabos”) sat down to work out the story of “Infinite Sea,” I’m sure he found the idea fascinating and full of promise, as did I when I first heard of his film. The story takes place in a bleak, near empty [...]
Review: Back to the Drive-In
— by WILLIAM STERR — When I was a kid back in Green Bay, Wisc., the family would pile into the station wagon and go out for an evening of movies at the drive-in. In our case, it was the Starlite Drive-In, which had opened in 1949. A few years later, it was my high […][...]
Review: Juniper
— by WILLIAM STERR — Juniper – a genus of hardy aromatic evergreen trees or shrubs of the cypress family, distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere. The “berry” – actually a fleshy cone – of the juniper is used to flavor gin. Sam (George Ferrier – “Kiwi Christmas”) i[...]