— by BEV QUESTAD — Four Aborigine gals, an alcoholic Australian DJ and the Vietnam War combine to make up a film you’re going to love. It is a rockin’ tribute to human drive and values and a poignant story of love, forgiveness and race amidst the bombs and casualties of war. Based on[...]
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Review: The House I Live In
— by BEV QUESTAD — Eugene Jarecki, a filmmaker with notable family fame and never-ending connections, might not be here today if it had not been for his father’s family escaping the Holocaust and his mother’s family eluding Russian pogroms. Born from a lineage of nightmares but raise[...]
Review: Warm Bodies
— by SHERICE ANTOINETTE — Forget vampires, with the huge success of “The Walking Dead” zombies appear to be the latest craze and this year we will have two zombie flicks. “World War Z,” directed by Marc Forster and starring Brad Pitt, will hit theaters this summer on June 21 and [...]
Review: Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
— by ADAM DALE — In recent years, there has been a growing trend in Hollywood to take classic fairy tales or children’s stories/movies and re-imagine them with a more adult-targeted story in mind. In the past few years, we have seen the fairest of them all get an edgier tone with “Sn[...]
Review: Tabu
— by SHERICE ANTOINETTE — “Tabu” — Portuguese director Michael Gomes’ newest tale — begins with an explorer on an African expedition in the 19th century. On no clear path, the man appears to be searching aimlessly. Filmed entirely in gorgeous black and white, in conjunc[...]
Review: Hyde Park on Hudson
— by BEV QUESTAD — This film does little more than caricature a past great president with innuendo, weakness and blatant misrepresentation. We have to wonder if there wasn’t some Tea Party backing. “Hyde Park on Hudson” has two major problems that will cast it into archival obscuri[...]
Review: This Is Not a Film
— by BEV QUESTAD — He eats jam and toast while sitting in his gorgeous Tehran apartment awaiting the results of his appeal. A camera is strategically stationed to record his life, including his phone calls, his latest movie idea and the huge but playful iguana that crawls up to his neck [...]
Review: Django Unchained
— by SHERICE ANTOINETTE — Slavery was one of America’s egregious sins. The topic of slavery — a wound which has yet to heal entirely — is a sensitive one. Subsequently, it came of little surprise when controversy swirled around Quentin Tarantino’s spaghetti western “Dja[...]
Review: Les Misérables
— by BEV QUESTAD — During the first 90 minutes, I was embarrassed. I couldn’t figure out what was happening in France at the turn of the 19th century, I couldn’t understand all the British accents and I found the music a little boring (oh no!). I was also having trouble figuring out [...]
Review: Anna Karenina
— by BEV QUESTAD — Part dance-musical, part Monty Python farce, part Shakespearean rendition on the “All the world’s a stage” theme, part melodrama and then a dollop of realistic tragedy makes “Anna Karenina” one ambitious experiment in art. But would Leo Tolstoy like it? With [...]
Review: Jack Reacher
— by ADAM DALE — While Tom Cruise has been a staple in the action genre for years, the aging star recently seemed to be slowing down his involvement in high intensity physical roles. However, if last year’s hit “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” proved anything, it’s that the 5[...]
Review: Zero Dark Thirty
— by BEV QUESTAD — You’re right there. The camera has night goggles. You arrive at 12:30 a.m. and it is quiet. The Pakistani community, with its own rendition of West Point within a mile, must hear you. But the two experimental Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopters’ low hum is deceptive[...]
Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
— by ADAM DALE — Almost 10 years after the final film in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy opened in theaters, we are being taken back to Middle Earth in a George Lucas/“Star Wars” way of storytelling by the man who started it all, Peter Jackson. Overcoming many hurdles along the w[...]
Review: California Solo
— by ADAM DALE — The aging rock star past his prime is an archetype we have seen in many different films, but writer and director Marshall Lewy has taken the subject and made it much more relatable and intimate in his portrait of a drunken ex-Brit pop musician struggling with a dark past[...]