— by RON WILKINSON — Headlining BAM’s fourth edition of Kino Polska: New Polish Cinema, Malgorzata Szumowska’s movie is a playful and atmospheric essay on human kindness and environmental frailty. Co-directed and written with Michal Englert, the Venice Film Festival hit succeeds with[...]
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Review: In Our Mothers’ Gardens
— by BEV QUESTAD — Presented as a chapter book, “In Our Mothers’ Gardens” is a look at the maternal history of several accomplished black women. Each woman knows her maternal history calls the name of her mother, who she was a daughter of … until she comes to the end of the t[...]
Review: Profile
— by RON WILKINSON — The best thing about internet social networking is the mutable nature of its reality. The truth as far as it goes, the user is ultimately in command of their profile. If this film is a cautionary tale it is to remind that mutability goes both ways. It is one thing [&[...]
Review: The Mauritanian
— by RON WILKINSON — Two thought patterns run through the minds of USA security personnel at Guantanamo as they interrogate a suspected key player in the World Trace Center attacks. The first is that if he did not do the crime of which he is accused, he would have done it if he had [&hel[...]
Review: The Perfect Candidate
— by BEV QUESTAD — The US wide-release of “The Perfect Candidate” has me worried. How can a drama about female repression in Saudi Arabia, filmed and produced in Saudi Arabia, notorious for said repression, pass a Saudi script censor and be submitted as the country’s Academy Award [...]
Review: Francesco
— by BEV QUESTAD — “Go into the world and preach the gospel … and if necessary, use words.” — St. Francis Assisi.” This is the quote, on a black background, that begins and reverberates throughout “Francesco.” Despite Pope Francis’s announcement that he was naming him[...]
Review: My Octopus Teacher
— by BEV QUESTAD — Unlikely. It’s simply unlikely that anything about a skin diver in temperatures as cold as 46 degrees Fahrenheit and his obsessive compulsive disorder with a wild common octopus are going to either inspire or move me. And yet, several days and innumerable Google sear[...]
Review: My Wonderful Wanda
— by RON WILKINSON — In a story rich in family dynamics with a substantial kicker of gender, class and nationality discrimination, Wanda comes to a luxurious villa in Switzerland, the manse of an industrial magnate. Although she has no wealth, her riches lie in her family. On one level, [...]
Review: Percy vs. Goliath
— by BEV QUESTAD — We’re in a protestant church, maybe Lutheran, in Saskatchewan, Canada, during the Sunday morning singing of a hymn when a skinny old man with odd hair notices darkness out the window. He quietly gets up, taps a man on the shoulder in the front row, and they leave dow[...]
Review: The Virtuoso
— by RON WILKINSON — The thread of samurai tradition runs through this noir thriller. An assassin is exceptionally good at what he does thanks to a godfather figure, the soldier comrade of the assassin’s deceased father. Taking the young man under his wing and teaching him a trade that[...]
Review: Kiss the Ground
— by BEV QUESTAD — Woody Harrelson announces he’s given up on fixing the environment. It’s simply too vast a problem with each solution seemingly causing more problems. But then he asks, “What if there is another path?” What does he mean? This past week, churches celebrated Earth[...]
Review: Voyagers
— by RON WILKINSON — Thirty brainwashed kids and one semi-coherent adult launch in a spaceship on an 86-year mission that few of them will survive. What could go wrong? Well, anyone who watched “2001: A Space Odyssey” knows plenty can go wrong. If they also read “Lord of the Flies[...]
Review: Every Breath You Take
— by RON WILKINSON — The usual trip to hockey practice turns into a fatal car crash that changes lives forever. Unfortunately it does not do much to change the lives of thousands of people watching this tedious drama cum thriller. The problem is the film makers cannot decide which it is,[...]
Review: The Man Who Sold His Skin
— by RON WILKINSON — A Syrian citizen makes a big mistake by heralding the revolution on a bus. Besotted with love, he proclaims his devotion to his lover and his freedom and promptly loses both. Luckily, there was a solution, a way to be free and be a patron of the arts at the […[...]