— by BEV QUESTAD — Here are masked men who steal your heart. They are surgeons who signed up to work the trauma cases our tax dollars have created in Gaza. Award-winning filmmaker Poh Si Teng and her crew risked their lives to film these heroes, an American Jew and an American Zoroastria[...]
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Review: American Pachuco
— by BEV QUESTAD — Jamie was 10 and a music lover. I took him to see “La Bamba.” Though rated PG-13, the rating noted he movie had no nudity, sex, violence or swearing. What could go wrong? In the end, Jamie cried right out loud, grief-stricken about what happened to Ritchie Valens, [...]
Review: Pescador
— by WILLIAM STERR — This is a strange one. First of all, the story was inspired by dreams the writer/director recalled from his time in an induced coma. Second, it includes a magical talking lobster. Third, it is divided into three very different parts. Part 1: The Woman Searches for a [...]
Review: In the Hand of Dante
— by WILLIAM STERR — Imagine you have just been told that one of the most famous poems in the world, one whose original text is lost to history, has instead been hidden in a crypt in the Vatican for centuries. Not only that, you are being commissioned to go to Italy and recover it. [&hel[...]
Review: Iron Lung
— by WILLIAM STERR — 120 minutes of inarticulate mumbling in a claustrophobic cylinder, intermingled with four minutes of excitement. This is another video game-to-movie production. For those of you who are not gamers, or at least have not played the game “Iron Lung,” the movie is ba[...]
Review: Honeyjoon
— by WILLIAM STERR — What an emotional roller coaster! Lela and June, mother and daughter, have arrived in the Azores, a spot their husband and father loved but never had a chance to share with them. So, as the anniversary of his death draws near, they’ve booked into a “Honeymoon Spe[...]
Review: Diabolic
— by WILLIAM STERR — Many religions have received negative treatment in the movies. In “Diabolic,” it’s the turn of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), commonly known as the Mormons. More specifically, its the FLDS, a Fundamental group that splintered from the LD[...]
Review: Everybody to Kenmure Street
— by WILLIAM STERR — It was early in the morning of May 13, 2021. The place was the neighborhood of Pollokshields, Glasgow, Scotland. The street was Kemure. The UK Immigration Enforcement, under the control of the Home Secretary Priti Patel (notorious Thatcherite who among other things a[...]
Review: Far From Maine
— by BEV QUESTAD — Roy Cohen’s pressing problem involves where to bring up his precious curly-headed little daughter. Should his family immigrate from the “moral decay of Israel” or stay to promote social justice and peace? Haunting him, causing paralysis in decision-making, is the[...]
Review: The Sheep Detectives
— by BEV QUESTAD — I took my junior film critic, Eileen (age 8) and her grandpa (age 79), to see this folksy film starring the “kindest animals in the world.” While their appreciation might have been what I expected, their comments were surprisingly astute. The sheep, led by the smar[...]
Review: Nuremberg
— by WILLIAM STERR — Hitler is dead, Germany has fallen, and most remaining Nazi leaders have been captured. However one, Hermann Göring, second only to Adolph Hitler in the Nazi hierarchy, remains at large. Then, American troops stop a Nazi-flagged limousine in Austria – a limousine [...]
Review: Manas
— by BEV QUESTAD — Luscious jungle leaves, warm, moist air, stilted houses built over water on a routinely flooded island on a tributary of the Amazon, and the songs of jungle animals fill this gorgeous film. Amidst mangrove trees and soft earth, with idyllic, slow-moving life sustained [...]
Review: Marama
— by WILLIAM STERR — The Maori are the indigenous inhabitants of what is now New Zealand. A proud, warrior people, brutal retaliation, including cannibalism, held a place in their rituals into the 19th century. It’s late in the 1850s. Mary Stevens (Ariana Osborne – “Millie Lies[...]
Review: The Sheep Detectives
— by WILLIAM STERR — English shepherd George Hardy (Hugh Jackman) has a simple but idyllic life. He lives in an Airstream trailer on his 300 acres with a flock of loving creatures – his sheep. After a full day of tending to the flock, including treating any suffering from the disease [...]