— by BEV QUESTAD — Yes, “American Factory” won the Oscar for Best Documentary. But was it really the best? The story is about a big American GM plant that closed in Dayton, Ohio, in 2008. The founder and CEO of a Chinese automobile glass manufacturing company, Cho Tak Wong, saw a bar[...]
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Review: Camp Cold Brook
— by RON WILKINSON — “Haunt Squad” TV reality show host Jack Wilson is in a tough spot. Like many horror show heroes, he is faced with losing his money, his house, his family, his dog and his TV show if he fails to make a big score. He needs a hit and he needs […][...]
Review: Les Miserables
— by RON WILKINSON — This heavily updated version of Victor Hugo’s classic adds timely touches of tragedy. Set in today’s Montfermeil suburb of Paris, the social estate called “les Bosquets” is home to multinationals starting a new life in France. North African, Middle Ea[...]
Review: Come As You Are
— by RON WILKINSON — Richard Wong’s feel good breakout movie turns the road trip on its head. Three disabled men team up with a traveling nurse to escape their parents and find America. Rather, they want to escape America and find Canada, specifically a brothel specializing in those wi[...]
Review: Judy
— by BEV QUESTAD — Renée Zellweger won the Golden Globe for Best Actress for her portrayal of Judy Garland. Can she do it again for the Oscar? “Judy” is the 2019 movie adaptation of the play “End of the Rainbow,” which documents the last year or so of Garland’s struggle with h[...]
Review: The Cave
— by BEV QUESTAD — Nominated for the Best Documentary Oscar, “The Cave” explains what happens when 40,000 people are caught in a no-exit strangle-hold. With snipers on rooftops and sporadic planes re-bombing structural remains, the only safe place is deep underground. Food is scarce [...]
Review: Beanpole
— by RON WILKINSON — Kicking off the year with a powerhouse of an essay on the horrors of war, director Kantemir Balagov weaves together stories of the Siege of Leningrad. As one might expect, all three are bad, ending in the briefest ray of light. Some survive and some do not. As in all[...]
Review: Portrait of a Lady on Fire
— by RON WILKINSON — An artist hired to paint a portrait of a bride-to-be discovers that the subject refuses to pose. She is not just camera shy, or easel shy, she is fundamentally opposed to the idea of being painted. The French had their attitudes, even in 1790. As it turns out, there [...]
Review: Clemency
— by RON WILKINSON — In this profound exploration of the emotional toll of capital punishment, Alfre Woodard seems to take responsibility for the entire movie, just as her character takes responsibility for ending the lives of those deemed by society as being unfit to live. As she does t[...]
Review: Little Joe
— by BEV QUESTAD — Alice is a bio-engineer who has created a plant with a scent that makes people happy. She wears a mask at all times while she is tending her creation that has been mass-propagated in a sterile, warm, locked, glass-enclosed test room. Why the high tech containment? This[...]
Review: Three Christs
— by BEV QUESTAD — “Three Christs” is as entertaining as it is soul-searching. A brilliant cast, headed by Richard Gere, and a poignant study of mental health make this the new “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” of 2020. Based on the psychiatric case study titled “The [...]
Review: Midnight Family
— by RON WILKINSON — Never have so few done so much for so little. In Mexico City, the Ochoa family operates a private ambulance service that survives, barely, by virtually begging critically injured patients to pay. Sometimes they do pay, and then local police bust the family for operat[...]
Review: Invisible Life
— by RON WILKINSON — Born in Rio de Janeiro, Guida and Euridice grow up sharing their most intimate secrets. Through the brilliant direction of Karim Ainouz, we are part of that intimacy. There is no film in recent history that takes the viewer into the hearts of the characters as well. [...]
Review: 1917
— by RON WILKINSON — Edited to simulate a continuous take, a plot that might otherwise be mundane and trite becomes a tense, power-packed race for life. The lethal terror of World War I is turned on its head by the realistic scenes of boredom, fear and rats in the trenches, making filth [...]