— by RON WILKINSON — Professor Phillip Goodman is comfortable with himself. As an A-list psychic debunker, he is quite at home shattering others’ spiritual illusions. His mad dog attacks on celebrated practitioners of the sixth sense almost always win him another stuffed head over the [...]
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Review: I Feel Pretty
— by JESSIKA OWENS — Renee Bennett is a women with low self esteem, a job that isn’t fulfilling and is for the most part, your “average” woman. Who is Renee Bennett and why is she attempting to mirror the qualities and experiences so many women have? What does it look l[...]
Review: Island of the Hungry Ghosts
— by RON WILKINSON — Tiny Christmas Island, Australia, may be the world’s most beautiful and mystical place. At least, the most beautiful place in which you would never want to live. The sea pounds its jagged, rocky shoreline whistling, wheezing and sometimes screaming through blowhole[...]
Review: Lou Andreas-Salomé
— by BEV QUESTAD — Lou Andreas-Salomé, born in Russia in 1861, machete-chopped herself into the inner sanctum of the all-male intellectual community in Germany with a strident drive for independence and equality. Gifted with an extraordinary intellect, a drive to pursue advanced study a[...]
Review: Zama
— by RON WILKINSON — Don Diego de Zama suffocates within a glass cage in the sweltering miasma of Spanish colonial Paraguay. A minor official of an invasion, he is stationed where occupiers are sent to die. If they do not die they are forgotten. South American born, and slowly being writ[...]
Review: Lives Well Lived
— by BEV QUESTAD — If we knew the secret to being happy, would it change how we lived our lives? Sky Bergman, inspired by her grandmother who, at almost 100 years old still worked out, has made a film of interview responses to questions related to what might help us live in the now. [&he[...]
Review: Journey’s End
— by RON WILKINSON — Hardly the first film about The Great War, the pin-point focus of this essay on mental disintegration makes it one of the best. It is a stripped-down production, shot almost entirely in the mud-filled trench sets. Most of the dialogue takes place in the incredibly sq[...]
Review: A Quiet Place
— by JESSIKA OWENS — The silent film is not particularly prevalent in today’s cinema experience. When I have asked people their thoughts on silent films, more times than not they have a preconceived notion of what that means. A very specific type of image springs to their mind and,[...]
Review: Big Fish and Begonia
— by RON WILKINSON — Every soul is a fish on a journey through the sea and the setting is water for much if this riveting film. The movie is animated but the story line is so complex and has so many symbolic references that it is most suitable for adults. The magic is in […][...]
Review: NY Export: Opus Jazz
— by BEV QUESTAD — Celebrating Jerome Robbins’ birth centennial, ballet companies are resurrecting his choreographed works throughout the US this spring. Most famous for his collaboration with Leonard Bernstein in creating “West Side Story,” Robbins has been described as the “qui[...]
Review: Lowlife
— by RON WILKINSON — In his narrative feature debut, writer/director Ryan Prows shows some good stuff, but not enough to make this flick a success. It unabashedly copies the style of “Pulp Fiction” but does it to considerably reduced effect. The movie opens in a great setting in what[...]
Review: 12 Days (aka 12 jours)
— by RON WILKINSON — A dozen residents of a French psychiatric hospital have one thing in common. None of them volunteered to be there. They have been adjudicated to be a danger to themselves or others. Therefore, they will stay in the lock-up until the authorities decide they can leave.[...]
Review: The Workshop (aka L’atelier)
— by RON WILKINSON — From the opening scene of the strikingly beautiful Marina Fois leading a sunny summer class of vibrant teens, we know there is going to be trouble. The trouble is the barely concealed sexual chemistry between her character, the teacher Olivia Dejazet, and her brillia[...]
Review: Number One (aka Numéro une)
— by RON WILKINSON — Emmanuelle Devos may be the one suffering the slings and arrows of powerful and spiteful male colleagues, but there is never any doubt as to who is in control. Her exotic and beautiful exterior masks a deliciously devious mind that is every bit as capable of mayhem a[...]