— by BEV QUESTAD — The Vicious Cycle versus the American Dream. Aristotle, James Madison, FDR, and Howard Zinn. An ominous title for an ominous time. Required reading for this year’s graduates. Free link at end. Noam Chomsky, 88 years old at the time of the release of this film, is wid[...]
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Review: A Good Woman Is Hard to Find
— by RON WILKINSON — The lengths that people will go to for various causes has become the capsule description for revenge flicks. A quick set-up to get the juices going and the glorious simplistic finish, usually with bloody violence. On the surface this film is that, enough get-even act[...]
Review: Driveways
— by BEV QUESTAD — In one of the last performances before his death on April 15, 2020, Brian Dennehy brought a simple little film to glory. Cast as a retired old fogey named Del, who has lived in the neighborhood since he married about 50 years ago, Dennehy makes this film glow. Driveway[...]
Review: The Wretched
— by RON WILKINSON — His parents engaged in an ugly divorce, Ben does the wrong thing and breaks into a neighbor’s house to steal some opioids. A bad thing, but not bad enough to merit the bloody coming out of the ear treatment by a decidedly evil witch-like monster. At the same time, [...]
Review: Bull
— by BEV QUESTAD — Has the bull ever lost in a bull-riding contest? There is absolutely no record showing a bull-rider out-riding the bucking bull. “Bull,” a double-entendre for this surprising film, is about a 14-year old girl named Kris who is determined to be a professional bull-r[...]
Review: Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind
— by BEV QUESTAD — The film begins with 11-year old Natasha waking up to a radio broadcast that her mother has been picked up off Catalina Island. Not understanding, she rushes downstairs as her father is coming up to tell her the news. She says, “The day my mom died my entire world wa[...]
Review: Planet of the Humans
— by RON WILKINSON — The YouTube title reads “Michael Moore Presents: Planet of the Humans.” Apparently, the film-maker added the Oscar winner’s handle and offered 30 days of free viewing to get this stinker off the dime. It will not work. Whether Moore owed his buddy Jeff Gibbs a [...]
Review: Deerskin
— by RON WILKINSON — Georges might always have felt it is the clothes that make the man. No wonder, reeling from the short end of a divorce, penniless and with his credit card cruelly cancelled by a heartless ex, it is a coat of the skin of prey that speaks to him. Abandoned to […[...]
Review: Until the Birds Return
— by BEV QUESTAD — How responsible are we when we see an injustice happen and we do nothing? Karim Moussaoui, an Algerian writer/director, presents three perspectives on this in his masterpiece, “Until the Birds Return.” Three life strands are juxtaposed, each with their parallels an[...]
Review: True History of the Kelly Gang
— by RON WILKINSON — George MacKay wanted to cover all the bases and appearing as the luckless and legendary Ned Kelly and the plucky and traumatized Lance Corporal Schofield in two films opening in Australia on the same day did it. On the other hand, the stark grace of “1917” so ove[...]
Review: Endings, Beginnings
— by BEV QUESTAD — From 71 years of observation, it seems this is a role-reversal film where the woman, in this case Daphne (Shailene Woodley), takes on the characteristics of the stereotypical social bachelor who sports with one girl after another, oblivious to breaking hearts. Like the[...]
Review: Why Don’t You Just Die!
— by RON WILKINSON — Most splatter flicks take themselves too seriously. It is not the plethora of spouting veins that makes the movie great, it is the deliciously dark humor than goes with it. Throwing a TV set into someone’s face is fun enough, but when the set itself refuses to die,[...]
Review: About a Teacher
— by BEV QUESTAD — During his first year of teaching, Hanan Harchol tells his dad it’s like living in a war zone. “Yesterday one kid almost impaled another kid with a light stand.” Based on his own first three years of teaching fimmaking at an inner-city New York high school, Harch[...]
Review: The Other Lamb
— by RON WILKINSON — The opening scenes of the concubine-like quarters of the 15 or so women under the control of Shepherd tell the whole story. Do not try to impose any kind of literal, rational interpretation on this movie. The message is allegorical, at best. At worst, it is exploitat[...]