— by BEV QUESTAD — “Art is the way to the heart. The hearts of men can and will change. That change changes the world.” Great was the hope, but little did Serj Tankian, now 53 years old, really consider that his music could bring down a government. Tankian’s great grandfather w[...]
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Review: News of the World
— by BEV QUESTAD — Why hasn’t “News of the World” hit the big time? Where are the Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for Best Movie and Best Actor? Tom Hanks plays Captain Kidd, a practical but tortured man who travels from town to town having lost all that is dear. An ex-minister [...]
Review: Nomadland
— by BEV QUESTAD — “Nomadland” is a minimalist presentation with no plot. What is boring is good, what is beautiful is barren, and what is desired is almost nothing. Is this Buddha in America? Of the more than 50 movies I chose to see for the 2020 film season, “Nomadland” was the[...]
Review: City of Lies
— by RON WILKINSON — A gangsta rap artist dies in a hail of bullets after a late night all-out party in L.A. Not so amazing. A few days later, an undercover L.A. cop kills another undercover L.A. cop in an apparent road rage incident. That is a story, and city detective Russell Poole thi[...]
Review: The Courier
— by RON WILKINSON — Sixty years after the fact, we are being treated to a raft of real life spy stories. Kept under wraps due to the most sensitive security concerns are true tales of heroism and mistakes that could have been lethal. Greville Wynne was thrown into Lubyanka prison, a des[...]
Review: Slalom
— by RON WILKINSON — Following on the heels of several years of revelations of sex abuse by coaches and officials in world elite sports this movie puts the facts and figures in a powerful personal perspective. The setting is World Cup skiing and the emotions, betrayals and usuary are uni[...]
Review: Stray
— by BEV QUESTAD — Imagine living as a stray dog in colorful Istanbul where dogs are treated even better than the sacred cows of India. Food scraps are thrown your way and people pet you as you trot by. The only trouble comes from your own kind. Mixed with sage quotes from the Greeks, [&[...]
Review: Hunger Ward
— by BEV QUESTAD — A cruel conflict in the poorest Gulf country has strafed a culture and its people with the assistance of the US since 2015. In America, it is called the War in Yemen or the Yemeni Civil War. In the Middle East, it is called the Saudi-American War. It took acclaimed [&h[...]
Review: My Donkey, My Lover and I
— by RON WILKINSON — Antoinette was famous after the first day of her gutsy solo trek on the Stevenson Trail in the rugged Cevennes mountains of France. No wonder her fame would spread, as she is so beautiful. That alone would make her presence known even if she were not on the trail to [...]
Review: Ibrahim
— by RON WILKINSON — Coming of age in a disenfranchised Maghreb community in Paris, Ibrahim (Abdel Bendaher) lives a spartan life with his underemployed father. The story of class distinction and changing family roles presents a challenge not unlike that faced by many families, only this[...]
Review: Mafia Inc
— by RON WILKINSON — Is this a Canadian Godfather or is Godfather an Americanized Mafia? Against the original, this remake offers few surprises, just a further variation that crime does not pay. OK, it does for a while, but the geese come home to roost and the gangster realizes he has ma[...]
Review: The Trial of the Chicago 7
— by BEV QUESTAD — The 1968 chaotic August Democratic Convention was covered for CBS by famed journalist, Dan Rather, who was punched in the gut and assaulted by guards as he was trying to interview a convention delegate. The Vietnam War was raging, President Johnson had declined to run [...]
Review: Dead Air
— by RON WILKINSON — Sometimes radio waves do what they are told and sometimes they have a mind of their own. Sometimes they tell stories in a movie, stories that should have told by the camera and not by the voice on the radio. When one is talking over a two-way radio, there is [&hellip[...]
Review: My Darling Supermarket
— by RON WILKINSON — The stories those cans could tell. Everybody has a story and this microcosm runs the gamut. Employees are interviewed in their workplace as they live the better part of their lives with their assigned companions. Some flirt, some have serious conversations, some work[...]