— by BEV QUESTAD — “I am the leader of the whole world. What would you like me to give you?” This true-life story of Nektarios of Aegin grabs attention from the start and soon spreads into your heart and soul like the incoming crash of a Mediterranean wave. A showing of “Man of God[...]
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Review: Drive My Car
— by BEV QUESTAD — Up for an Oscar in two categories, best film and best international feature film in a foreign language, “Drive My Car” was also on Barack Obama’s list of Favorite Movies of 2021. On one level it is an intellectual’s film, with references to Anton Chekov and exi[...]
Review: A Banquet
— by WILLIAM STERR — Imagine you are a woman methodically cleaning a chair, scrubbing thoroughly. In the background, someone is coughing – very hard – trying to breathe. You go on scrubbing as the coughing gets more and more desperate. Finally, you rise and try to comfort a man who s[...]
Review: Gasoline Alley
— by WILLIAM STERR — Have you ever watched a movie and thought: “This wouldn’t be half bad if it wasn’t for that one actor”? (And especially when that actor is the draw for the entire movie?) Welcome to “Gasoline Alley” and Bruce Willis. I don’t know whether Willis is t[...]
Review: King Knight
— by WILLIAM STERR — Imagine the Brady Bunch from early 1970s television – but as a coven of witches in LA. The introductory scene to “King Knight” even has the three by three layout of pictures of the “family” with a cat in the center housekeeper position. We are introduced to[...]
Review: Strawberry Mansion
— by WILLIAM STERR — Released by Music Box Films, a distributor of foreign and independent films, this 2021 surreal production from Ley Line Entertainment deals with a future in which dreams can be recorded and played back to our conscious minds. Evidently everyone does this, and it is a[...]
Review: The Jump
— by WILLIAM STERR — This documentary, produced in 2020 but only recently released in the USA in Los Angeles, recounts a remarkable event that occurred on Nov. 23, 1970. At that time, a meeting was being held off the coast of Massachusetts between Soviet officials representing their fish[...]
Review: Ghosts of the Ozarks
— by WILLIAM STERR — Arkansas: The Ozark Mountains, densely forested plateaus, moonshine, Southern pride, ghosts. James McCune (Thomas Hobson – “Stone Fruit”) is making his way alone on horseback through the forested Ozark Mountains of northern Arkansas. He is headed for the town o[...]
Review: MLK/FBI
— by BEV QUESTAD — “MLK/FBI” deals with the sacred so it must be honest, accurate and complete. “MLK/FBI,” in Sam Pollard’s master hands, documents the story of a massive movement that challenged American values and societal structure. He also tells the dark side: White resista[...]
Review: Lamb
— by WILLIAM STERR — One upon a time, there was a little family that lived on a farm, far, far from any village. Theirs was a simple, happy life until one day, their beloved daughter was taken from them in death. The father and mother continued to work their farm and care for their [&hel[...]
Review: Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry
— by BEV QUESTAD — “I’ve been walkin’ through a world gone blind/… I’m scared/I’ve never fallen from quite this high/Fallin’ into your ocean eyes” (Finneas, “Ocean Eyes,” 2015). At 13, Billie Eilish and her brother, Finneas, posted this song, written b[...]
Review: WarHunt
— by WILLIAM STERR — It was a dark and stormy night. With crows. Let’s set the scene: It’s early 1945 and the war in Europe is nearing conclusion. Hitler’s Germany is desperate. Soviet troops are advancing from the east, while the Americans and their allies are closing in from the [...]
Review: Attica
— by BEV QUESTAD — Inmates riot, capture guards (one dies), close down the prison and demand better treatment. Is this going to end well? For five days in September 1971 in upper state New York, 1,281 out of the approximately 2,200 prisoners at Attica Correctional Facility took an amazin[...]
Review: Belfast
— by BEV QUESTAD — Perfect timing. That “Belfast” was coincidentally released in 2021, the year of the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol, sends an ominous shudder down my back. The film, an autobiographically-inspired look at an early time in film-maker Kenneth Branagh’s life, opens [...]