— by RON WILKINSON — Don Diego de Zama suffocates within a glass cage in the sweltering miasma of Spanish colonial Paraguay. A minor official of an invasion, he is stationed where occupiers are sent to die. If they do not die they are forgotten. South American born, and slowly being writ[...]
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Review: Lives Well Lived
— by BEV QUESTAD — If we knew the secret to being happy, would it change how we lived our lives? Sky Bergman, inspired by her grandmother who, at almost 100 years old still worked out, has made a film of interview responses to questions related to what might help us live in the now. [&he[...]
Review: Journey’s End
— by RON WILKINSON — Hardly the first film about The Great War, the pin-point focus of this essay on mental disintegration makes it one of the best. It is a stripped-down production, shot almost entirely in the mud-filled trench sets. Most of the dialogue takes place in the incredibly sq[...]
Review: A Quiet Place
— by JESSIKA OWENS — The silent film is not particularly prevalent in today’s cinema experience. When I have asked people their thoughts on silent films, more times than not they have a preconceived notion of what that means. A very specific type of image springs to their mind and,[...]
Review: Big Fish and Begonia
— by RON WILKINSON — Every soul is a fish on a journey through the sea and the setting is water for much if this riveting film. The movie is animated but the story line is so complex and has so many symbolic references that it is most suitable for adults. The magic is in […][...]
Review: NY Export: Opus Jazz
— by BEV QUESTAD — Celebrating Jerome Robbins’ birth centennial, ballet companies are resurrecting his choreographed works throughout the US this spring. Most famous for his collaboration with Leonard Bernstein in creating “West Side Story,” Robbins has been described as the “qui[...]
Review: Lowlife
— by RON WILKINSON — In his narrative feature debut, writer/director Ryan Prows shows some good stuff, but not enough to make this flick a success. It unabashedly copies the style of “Pulp Fiction” but does it to considerably reduced effect. The movie opens in a great setting in what[...]
Review: 12 Days (aka 12 jours)
— by RON WILKINSON — A dozen residents of a French psychiatric hospital have one thing in common. None of them volunteered to be there. They have been adjudicated to be a danger to themselves or others. Therefore, they will stay in the lock-up until the authorities decide they can leave.[...]
Review: The Workshop (aka L’atelier)
— by RON WILKINSON — From the opening scene of the strikingly beautiful Marina Fois leading a sunny summer class of vibrant teens, we know there is going to be trouble. The trouble is the barely concealed sexual chemistry between her character, the teacher Olivia Dejazet, and her brillia[...]
Review: Number One (aka Numéro une)
— by RON WILKINSON — Emmanuelle Devos may be the one suffering the slings and arrows of powerful and spiteful male colleagues, but there is never any doubt as to who is in control. Her exotic and beautiful exterior masks a deliciously devious mind that is every bit as capable of mayhem a[...]
Review: Petit Paysan (aka Bloody Milk)
— by RON WILKINSON — If you are in doubt about the nastiness of dorsal hemorrhagic fever, look no further than this flick. If you think it is bad when it infects the cows, just wait. Director Hubert Charuel’s bovine version of “The Cabin in the Woods” is brought to you by the 23rd [...]
Review: The Lion Sleeps Tonight
— by RON WILKINSON — The 23rd Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, co-presented by Film Society of Lincoln Center and Unifrance, brings you the 60th year of Jean-Pierre Leaud’s acting life. As the actor Jean, he finds it hard to play his own death. Understandably so, since, as one of the cr[...]
Review: Chronic Means Forever
— by BEV QUESTAD — This core-deep self-examination reveals a poetically insightful young woman who asks the big questions: Does my body have value? What do I do? How do I save myself now? Is life worth living? Filmmaker Kadazia Allen-Perry has taken the reality TV aside and made it into [...]
Review: Montparnasse Bienvenüe
— by RON WILKINSON — The 31-year-old woman screaming at the top of her lungs in front of the apartment door would not be remarkable. Especially in the context of cutting (or bleeding) edge French cinema as presented by the 23rd Rendez-Vous with French Cinema (co-presented by Film Society[...]