— by RON WILKINSON — The Spierig brothers reunite with Ethan Hawke for their first feature in five years and it is a fascinating film. The screenplay is based on the science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein “—All You Zombies—”. Reportedly, the story was written i[...]
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Review: Inherent Vice
— by RON WILKINSON — Those who have read any of Thomas Pynchon’s intractable tails must have been amazed that Paul Thomas Anderson would take on the hazardous task of transforming his 2009 novel into a movie. Continuing Pynchon’s ongoing war against the establishment, the “Inhe[...]
Review: The Imitation Game
— by RON WILKINSON — Benedict Cumberbatch pounds out a fantastic performance as one of the greatest nerds of all time, Alan Turing, the inventor of one of the first digital computers. Although the computer itself, built in the legendary Bletchley Park encryption think tank, threatens to [...]
Review: Zero Motivation
— by RON WILKINSON — Talya Larvie’s military dramedy “Zero Motivation” is fresh, untamed and funny. This is amazing, considering it shreds one of the top military organizations in the world. Featuring the women of mandatory conscription, the setting is a desolate Israeli mi[...]
Review: The Homesman
— by RON WILKINSON — The opening scenes of “The Homesman” are as bleak as death itself. Parched plains, patched together clapboard houses, poverty so deep it rises up to greet you at the front door, and wind that never, ever, lets up. Tommy Lee Jones’ second feature film sh[...]
Review: Bad Hair
— by RON WILKINSON — Nine-year-old Junior is on the war path with his mother. What else is new? The ageless story of kid versus parent is told again, this time in the tough streets of the projects in Caracas, Venezuela. His mother, Marta, has lost her job and is in the process of giving [...]
Review: Camp X-Ray
— by RON WILKINSON — Peter Sattler’s directorial debut is as bare and exposed as a prisoner in a cell. A stripped down film about warehousing human beings and waiting for the next step. The next step for the inmate is release, and it may come sooner than the next step for the jaile[...]
Review: Mending the Line
— by BEV QUESTAD — This is the perfect Veteran Day’s film. It is the story of a WWII vet named Frank Moore and his reconciliation with the unspeakable inhumanity he suffered in war interwoven with his passion for a fishing rod, nature and a beautiful wife. Miraculously, there is a save[...]
Review: Diplomacy
— by RON WILKINSON — After watching Volker Schlöndorff’s (Oscar-winning German director of “The Tin Drum”) touching, scary and occasionally funny rendition of an imaginary meeting that decided the fate of Paris, you may never watch “My Dinner With Andre” in the same way again.[...]
Review: Before I Go To Sleep
— by RON WILKINSON — Nicole Kidman gives it her best shot but there is simply not enough going on in Rowan Joffe’s psychological drama to make it work. The lack of plot is aggravated by the bizarre use of jarring loud noises and the guessing games the audience goes through trying to un[...]
Review: Interstellar
— by RON WILKINSON — Christopher Nolan’s $165 million IMAX space lollapalooza is all the better for starting in the most modest of environments. It is some time in the future, some place in the American Midwest. Things are not going well, according to the elderly respondents. Blights a[...]
Review: The Heart Machine
— by RON WILKINSON — Writer/director Zachary Wigon’s essay on the vicissitudes of internet love starts innocently enough. A quiet, intimate conversation in the privacy of Cody’s (John Gallagher Jr. of “The Newsroom” and “Short Term 12”) East Village apartment with a possible [...]
Review: Seeds of Hope
— by BEV QUESTAD — This is the story of Masika Katsuva, a Congolese woman of extraordinary resolve and resiliency. Though she has wanted to kill herself many times, and though she sometimes prays to God to take her life just so she can get some rest, Masika is a transformer of spirits an[...]
Review: Return to Homs
— by BEV QUESTAD — The new Homs sidewalk is a passage through the crashed out walls of uninhabited apartments inside bombed-out buildings. If you want to get somewhere, just take a mallet and make holes in a series of walls. Eventually you will make it to the end of the block where you c[...]