— by WILLIAM STERR — It’s rough making a living as an urban explorer of mysterious abandoned buildings. However, Marcus (Quinn Nehr – “Sheltered”) and his small band of fellow videocasters are doing their best. Girlfriend Jessie (Brynn Beveridge – “That Night”) want[...]
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Review: Champions
— by BEV QUESTAD — Marcus Marakovich (Woody Harrelson) has a temper and an ambition to be a basketball coach in the NBA. After a televised altercation with a minor-league head coach during a game, he gets drunk, plows into a police car and loses his job. He is given a choice of jail time[...]
Review: Broadway
— by WILLIAM STERR — When you hear the word “Athens,” what comes to mind? The cradle of democracy (as long as you were a free male citizen)? Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey? Alexander the Great? Philosophers Socrates and Plato? The Parthenon (whose marble sculptures were swiped by the D[...]
Review: Refuge
— by BEV QUESTAD — When Chris took over the Security of Georgia for the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, he was told he needed to brand himself. So, he fashioned a tattoo with a fat X because each part makes a K. The white inside signified that white is right. The red […][...]
Review: The Last of the Winthrops
— by WILLIAM STERR — Who among us has not wondered what secrets our ancestral past might hold? The advent of inexpensive gene sequencing has brought many pleasant surprises, as many disappointments, and some real misery. Still, wouldn’t it be wonderful to discover you were the great gr[...]
Review: Infinite Sea
— by WILLIAM STERR — When Portuguese writer/director Carlos Amaral (“Por Diabos”) sat down to work out the story of “Infinite Sea,” I’m sure he found the idea fascinating and full of promise, as did I when I first heard of his film. The story takes place in a bleak, near empty [...]
Review: Back to the Drive-In
— by WILLIAM STERR — When I was a kid back in Green Bay, Wisc., the family would pile into the station wagon and go out for an evening of movies at the drive-in. In our case, it was the Starlite Drive-In, which had opened in 1949. A few years later, it was my high […][...]
Review: Triangle of Sadness
— by BEV QUESTAD — 1. “The last capitalist we hang is the one who sold us the rope.” Who said it? Nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, “Triangle of Sadness” is a cutting satire on power and the human condition. The very worst part of the film, which lasted many minutes, was the [...]
Review: Juniper
— by WILLIAM STERR — Juniper – a genus of hardy aromatic evergreen trees or shrubs of the cypress family, distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere. The “berry” – actually a fleshy cone – of the juniper is used to flavor gin. Sam (George Ferrier – “Kiwi Christmas”) i[...]
Review: Living
— by WILLIAM STERR — In 1843, a British writer published a story about a man who, in his ambition for a secure life in business, drove away those around him and hollowed out that life. Eventually, faced with the threat of his own death, he changed his ways and began reconnecting: doing g[...]
Review: Goliath
— by WILLIAM STERR — This is a difficult, even infuriating, movie. Most of us are familiar with the story of how the tobacco industry fought for decades to obscure the fact about tobacco use, addiction and health issues. We’ve seen the same thing with fossil fuels and opioids. French w[...]
Review: The Whale
— by WILLIAM STERR — In 2012, Darren Aronofsky (“Mother!”), attended a performance of “The Whale,” a play by Samuel Hunter. A decade later, he directed a movie version with Hunter as screenwriter and Brendan Fraser (“Gods and Monsters”) starring as the protagonist, Ch[...]
Review: The First Step
— by BEV QUESTAD — If you tend to watch CNN then you probably know the handsome, well-spoken Yale Law School commentator whose rich voice speaks with passion. On the night of the 2016 election he somberly intoned: “It’s hard to be a parent tonight for a lot of us. You tell your kids:[...]
Review: Alchemy of the Spirit
— by WILLIAM STERR — Oliver Black (Xander Berkeley – “Butcher’s Crossing) is an artist. He works out of a studio in his home in a village in Vermont. One fall morning, he wakes to find his wife, Evelyn (Sarah Clarke – “Coda”) dead beside him. His trauma is intense – she[...]