— by RON WILKINSON — The movie opens with a real lab, real humans and real weird gadgets. The men act like doctors, only they are healing mysterious forces beyond the comprehension of normal mortals. They have some sorts of infrared goggles, like you would use to view an atomic bomb, or [...]
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Review: Leonard Bernstein: Larger Than Life
— by BEV QUESTAD — A documentary on Leonard Bernstein, a passionate musical genius, could cover an examination of his politics, social life, psychology, family and music career. But to do justice to any of these aspects would mean at least a five-hour film. So this one-hour doc focuses o[...]
Review: Dogman
— by RON WILKINSON — Billing this movie as a crime drama is dark comedy. The film itself is even darker than crime, a disturbing look into social connection and the meaning of intimacy in friendship. Specifically, the lack thereof. The protagonist lives a doomed existence, fated to exist[...]
Review: The Kamagasaki Cauldron War
— by BEV QUESTAD — A tour guide tells his group that the big flower planters have been strategically placed in Kamagasaki to make it impossible for indigents to sleep on the sidewalks. Then an indigent, who is also a crack pick-pocket, passes by and steals his money. The pickpocket needs[...]
Review: The Public
— by BEV QUESTAD — The Cincinnati Ohio Library is being sued for $750,000 by a frequent patron who was told he must leave the building because of his smell. He claims discrimination. The humble librarian, Stuart Goodson (Emilio Estevez), who was pressured by annoyed patrons to ask the od[...]
Review: The Brink
— by BEV QUESTAD — Alison Klayman, a progressive Jewish granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, consented to produce/direct a film on a man with whose ideas she does not agree. As a filmmaker and journalist, she has won recognition for her work on the Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei[...]
Review: Amateurs (aka Amatörer)
— by BEV QUESTAD — A younger generation has taken over the 2019 Portland International Film Festival (PIFF) with the theme: Empathy has no Ethnicity. “Amateurs” was their brave choice to open the festival. Filmed liked a documentary about two sets of filmmakers making a marketing fil[...]
Review: The Hummingbird Project
— by RON WILKINSON — A fiber optic data transmission line from Kansas to New York would allow the transmission and execution of millions of securities orders a millisecond faster than everybody else. Not a big time difference, about the time of one cycle of a hummingbird’s wing. But en[...]
Review: Auggie
— by BEV QUESTAD — Well, I’m going to tell you one thing — Richard Kind, the star of “Auggie,” is going to be teased unmercifully about his role in this film. What will his good friend (and best man at his wedding), George Clooney, have to say about it? In “Auggie,” the n[...]
Review: Sophia Antipolis
— by RON WILKINSON — “Sophia Antipolis,” the name suggests something very central and mysteriously feminine. The “Antipolis” part, for you Americans who are not familiar, is a technology center. The Sophia lends the vision of a virtual assistant, or perhaps a virtual lover. The p[...]
Review: School’s Out
— by RON WILKINSON — The acclaimed professor at an elite prep school climbs out of a third-story window in the middle of class and does a swan dive. A bad day for the teacher and a rough year for the school, but nothing compared to what lies in store for humanity. As might be […][...]
Review: Paul Sanchez is Back!
— by RON WILKINSON — Paul Sanchez Is Back! And we are all Paul Sanchez! A loopy curve ball of a flick that gets wackier and wackier until it is not anymore. A mysterious mass murderer who killed his family, burnt their bodies and then disappeared has been spotted by locals. All the south[...]
A look at some charismatic actors/actresses
When you are an actor or actress, charisma is everything. When we talk about charisma, we are talking about personality – the thing that makes people either love you or hate you. Some might refer to it as charm. You might fail to understand why people fall in love with some actors but detest other[...]