— by BEV QUESTAD — Jim Denevan walks dragging a rake on a smooth beach. He makes perfect circles over and over in uncannily perfect geometric patterns that can only be captured aerially by photo or video. I don’t see him using a protractor. Then the surf comes in and wipes it all away.[...]
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Review: Pig
— by WILLIAM STERR — “Purloined Porker.” Nicolas Cage is not noted for subtlety in his portrayals. Yet that is at the very heart of his performance in the new film “Pig.” Many fans are used to seeing Cage go “hog wild” in every film, exhibiting his trademark mania. Recent out[...]
Review: Jungle Cruise
— by BEV QUESTAD — Lily believes an old legend about a healing tree deep in the Amazon jungle. She is certain the properties of this tree could reshape medicine and be especially beneficial to Britain’s armed service during WWI. There is one caveat. If the tree “gets into the wrong h[...]
Review: Newtok
— by BEV QUESTAD — As the permafrost continues to thaw due to climate change, the Alaskan Yup’ik people in Newtok have created boardwalks and bulkheads to adapt to the dissolving ground and steadily encroaching river and sea waters. Their despair and poverty grow as their land fades aw[...]
Review: The Mole
— by RON WILKINSON — Perhaps it is because his past efforts were more Rabelaisian than revelatory, Mads Brugger’s latest will be taken with a grain of salt – even after he rightfully and correctly declares “Everything is Real.” The story that has Mads on the cusp of buying interm[...]
Review: Passing
— by BEV QUESTAD — “All of us are just passing for something or other, aren’t we?” Irene muses rhetorically. As the crack in her ceiling spreads out, the howling wind gets stronger and snow begins to fall. The exquisite cinematography enhances this important story about race and id[...]
Review: Out of the Blue
— by WILLIAM STERR — In preparation for viewing director Dennis Hopper’s “Out of the Blue,” I re-watched his seminal picture, “Easy Rider,” which I’d not seen since its theatrical release in 1969. The reason for this was Hopper’s own description of “Out of the Blue” as [...]
Review: Simple as Water
— by BEV QUESTAD — Yasmin stands on the cement walkway at a sea port in Athens with her four children. They are chasing a balloon and each other. She carefully monitors them and then herds them into their tent under the freeway overpass. Here she gets out her cell phone and lets them see[...]
Review: Ascension
— by RON WILKINSON — If you were going to create a successful capitalist nation from scratch, which would come first, smile training or sex dolls? Such appears to be the choice in China as the productivity behemoth groans and stretches through its growing pains as a developed economy. As[...]
Review: The Real Charlie Chaplin
— by BEV QUESTAD — The great irony is that Charlie Chaplin and his films were received enthusiastically and sympathetically before WWII and as communistic and unpatriotic after. Initially wildly popular throughout the world, “The Real Charlie Chaplin” details the man behind his chara[...]
Review: Grandpa Was An Emperor
— by RON WILKINSON — Still revered by many to this day, Emperor Haile Selassie ruled Ethiopia for decades. This film examines the coup that unseated him in 1974 through the eyes of his great granddaughter (Yeshi Kassa), and the reverberations of that coup throughout Selassie’s extended[...]
Review: Summer of Soul
— by RON WILKINSON — The most significant memory in this stirring documentary is how it sat on the shelf for nearly five decades due to lack of public interest. Woodstock, located one hundred miles to the north and bursting out at the same time, became legend while the Harlem Cultural Fe[...]
Review: The Rossellinis
— by BEV QUESTAD — Roberto Rossellini was a famous director in Italy, but in the end, it is the haunting “Casablanca” star Ingrid Bergman, whom he married in 1950, that made his personal life international news and this film, “The Rossellinis,” mandatory viewing. Roberto Rosselli[...]