— by BEV QUESTAD — The secrets behind the production of the 1969 three-day Woodstock music festival are spilled. How close and in how many ways the event skimmed catastrophe is documented in “Creating Woodstock,” a definitive documentary on the behind-the-scenes machinations of an ev[...]
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Review: Earth
— by RON WILKINSON — Each year the forces of nature, wind, erosion, tides and other, move about 60 million tons of surface soil. In that same year, humans move about 156 million tons. Humans have become a force of nature greater than nature itself. This stirring documentary takes the vie[...]
Review: Astronaut
— by BEV QUESTAD — Like many of us baby boomers, Angus’s trip to the doc reveals a series of symptoms predicting a series of impending malfunctions. The doc tells him frankly that he can no longer drive. His son-in-law figures he must move from living with his family to a retirement ho[...]
Review: Wild Rose
— by RON WILKINSON — 2019 BAFTA Rising Star Award nominee Jessie Buckley takes it easy in this prodigal girl ditty set in the gritty streets of Glasgow. Truly a rising star with an impressive track record of formal education, the real Jessie may be straining at the harness as is her fict[...]
Review: Holy Trinity
— by RON WILKINSON — Protagonist Trinity is a sex-positive woman living in Chicago’s well-known(?) Glam world. Her profession as a sexual dominatrix prospers in the City of the Big Shoulders. Propelled by huffing vapors of various aerosol consumer products and supported by a redoubtabl[...]
Review: The Art of Self Defense
— by RON WILKINSON — There is nothing finer than a well-executed flick about going insane. The film medium is well suited to depicting the human psyche walking the fine line between rationality and lunacy. Jesse Eisenberg is developing a niche in this genre. As the protagonist who flies [...]
Review: The Sweet Requiem
— by BEV QUESTAD — This is a deeply moving story, inspired by a true account, shot alternately in the desolate high Ladakh region of the Himalayan Mountains and in the Tibetan exile warren of Delhi. Award-wining Tibetan exile filmmakers Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam, associated with Richa[...]
Review: Give Me Liberty
— by RON WILKINSON — A road trip through the city of Milwaukee turns into a trip to the twilight zone. A van full of Russian immigrants is late for a funeral and a wheelchair-bound black woman has to be somewhere, fast. No time for questions, just run, run, run. Crashes and fights ensue [...]
Review: PHΦL (aka PHIL)
— by BEV QUESTAD — In the dark of night, middle-aged Phil awkwardly climbs over a fence and up onto the base of a Portland Bridge lamppost. To jump or not to jump? Suddenly, we see his gorgeous vertical descent into the cold river below. Bubbles boil around his straight body as if he wer[...]
Review: Paris is Burning
— by RON WILKINSON — Having barely recovered from the 1970s, New York City lurched into the 1980s with restored wealth and confidence, for most of the population. For those outside the nine-to-five club, it was business as usual; eat when and where possible, hustle to make the rent, deal[...]
Review: The Quiet One
— by BEV QUESTAD — While “Paint it Black” whips on in the background, Bill Wyman says, “If you do the right thing, you don’t get noticed. And that’s the way I play. It’s quite simple.” Wyman, bass player for the Rolling Stones from 1962 to 1993, was a quiet man who followed[...]
Review: Wild Rose
— by BEV QUESTAD — The prison door closes and young, redheaded Rose, shackled to an ankle monitor, is free to pursue her dream. Despite living poor in Glasgow, Scotland and speaking with an often-indecipherable brogue, Rose wants to become a Nashville singing star. But her first spontane[...]
Review: We Believe in Dinosaurs
— by BEV QUESTAD — In 2016, a $120 million dollar replica of Noah’s ark was built in northern Kentucky. It’s a gorgeous creation reminiscent of an exhibit in a Disney theme park, with a series of realistic scenes lining the walkway inside the boat. There is the sinful sybaritic lifes[...]
Review: I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians
— by RON WILKINSON — This delicious treatment of the art, craft or debacle of making a movie places the dilemmas of the commercial artist alongside the travesty of the Holocaust. The treatment of the concept as a movie within a movie comes through as simply superlative film making. It is[...]