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Review: Pig Killer

— by WILLIAM STERR — Have you ever gone through an experience after which you just felt “dirty.” Not physically, but mentally. You feel like you need a psychological shower? That’s how I felt after viewing “Pig Killer.” Maybe that was the intent of the film-makers. I hope so. O[...]

Review: Project Z

— by WILLIAM STERR — “Project Z” is one roller coaster of a ride! It starts out as a couple driving an RV through the countryside. They are talking back and forth about relationship issues when the RV hits something. They pull to a stop and then … suddenly people start appe[...]

Review: Glorious

— by WILLIAM STERR — Have you ever stopped along the highway at a rest-stop bathroom? If so, you know what a disgusting, even harrowing, experience it can be. Following some sort of breakup with his girlfriend, Brenda (Sylvia Grace Crim – “The Hunt”), Wes (Ryan Kwanten – [...]

Review: Suitable Flesh

— by WILLIAM STERR — Screenwriter Dennis Paoli (“Re-Animator,” “From Beyond,” “Dagon”) has successfully adapted several tales by H. P. Lovecraft. His latest (actually two decades in process) is “Suitable Flesh,” an adaptation of Lovecraft’s “The Thing on the Doorstep.[...]

Review: Miranda’s Victim

— by WILLIAM STERR — Patricia Weir is a shy, sexually inexperienced high school girl in Phoenix in 1963. She has a hectoring mother who is always after her to be prim and proper, and to be mindful of what the rest of society thinks of her. One late Saturday night, Patricia is on a [&hell[...]

Review: And Then Come the Nightjars

— by WILLIAM STERR — Nightjars are medium-sized birds that are active at dusk and in the night, closely related to whip-or-wills. Like those birds, they are superstitiously viewed as harbingers of disaster or death. Devonshire, England. 2001. One of the worst outbreaks of foot and mouth [...]

Review: A Haunting in Venice

— by WILLIAM STERR — “It was a dark and stormy night …” Well, it didn’t start out that way. In this, Kenneth Branagh’s third outing into the world of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot following “Murder on the Orient Express” and “Death on the Nile” – we meet a ve[...]

Review: Haunting of the Queen Mary

— by WILLIAM STERR — Ah, the long gone glory of transoceanic travel! Promenading on the deck while enjoying the bracing North Atlantic air. Then dressing for dinner, served in the sumptuous surrounding of the first class dining room. High on one wall, a mural of the ocean, with Europe on[...]

Review: American: An Odyssey To 1947

— by WILLIAM STERR — What’s it like to be a child prodigy? Few of us know, and that’s probably a good thing. “American: An Odyssey To 1947,” the latest documentary from Danny Wu (“Square One: Michael Jackson”), begins with a detailed biography of Orson Welles, the “enfant t[...]

Review: The Tank

— by WILLIAM STERR — Ah, the Oregon Coast! Protected against over development by prescient state leaders who, in 1913, declared the entire coast a public highway: open to all; privately owned and developed by none. In 1935, a substantial parcel of land along the coast was purchased by Al[...]

Review: The Last Voyage of the Demeter

— by WILLIAM STERR — Most people are familiar with the story of “Dracula,” written by Irish novelist and theater Bram Stoker in 1897. Stoker was a successful theater manager in London, writing on the side. He produced a number of novels and short stories in the melodramatic or “thr[...]

Review: Oppenheimer

— by WILLIAM STERR — J. Robert Oppenheimer, considered the father of the atomic bomb, was a major figure, first in theoretical physics and then in popular imagination, during the first half of the 20th century. Many people today have heard of Oppenheimer, but as the leader of the Manhatt[...]

Review: Owners

— by WILLIAM STERR — Have you ever wondered what goes on in the meetings of a home owners’ association? If you live in a condominium, a gated community, a co-op, or similar arrangement where there are rules that govern what owners can do, or where there are common spaces/resources that[...]

Review: The Eternal Memory

— by WILLIAM STERR — This documentary begins gently: a woman enters a bedroom where an elderly man lies sleeping. She calls, “Hello, hello, hello, hello,” and he stirs. Both laugh softly as he wakes. The old man knows who he is, but does not know her. The scene changes and we see him[...]