— by RON WILKINSON — Director Jim Mickle stays on safe ground with this routine, if well produced, sci-fi thriller. A serial killer stalks Philadelphia, offing seemingly random people in an outlandishly gruesome way. Lots of gore ensues, as the weapon of choice is a hemorrhagic toxin that kills people by making them bleed from […][...]
Review: Collisions
— by BEV QUESTAD — Coming home from school, 12-year old Itan and her younger brother, Neto, are shocked to find their house ransacked and their mother missing. Itan knows something bad has happened, but there is no one there to explain just what. A dangerous shift occurs when precocious Itan, a promising science student […][...]
Review: Diego Maradona
— by RON WILKINSON — Born in the slums of Argentina, Maradona soared. The Golden Boy of 1980s world class soccer, his debut with Barcelona football club was the most expensive contract to date. The biggest paycheck with the most powerful club in the world. Still, Pele, his predecessor and holder of “best player” creds […][...]
Review: Monos
— by RON WILKINSON — Children taking on adult roles is inherently scary. Perhaps it is scary to adults because we are afraid of what might happen if we were ever confronted with kids who had unquestionable, absolute control over everything we did. Combine that with a feeling of isolation so total you could cut […][...]
Review: Running with the Devil
— by BEV QUESTAD — Opening with the brutalization and burning of a fully unfortunate man, “Running with the Devil” is a graphically violent and decadent account of drug smuggling, from a farmer in the lush green low mountains of Colombia to a wealthy CEO sitting comfortably at his desk in a fancy Canadian high […][...]
Review: Don’t Be Nice
— by BEV QUESTAD — This is Shakespeare on steroids, a poetic banquet of color, action, rhythm and sound that transcends expectations. Featuring The Bowery Poetry Club, new director Max Powers reveals the revolutionary bedrock of Slam Poetry through an energized pace, smashing colors and syncopated sound in film verité.[...]
Review: Official Secrets
— by RON WILKINSON — When a narrative fiction film is made based on a true story there cannot be a surprise ending. The viewer knows where the movie starts and where it ends. The fun is seeing how it gets there. Good supporting work helps, but in this flick Keira Knightley does it all. […][...]
Review: Imprisoned
— by BEV QUESTAD — The great Laurence Fishburne is a master, wielding a haunting script with the finesse of a graceful predator in seemingly complete power over his prey. From the opening scenes of trailer house poverty and wretched nightmares to the flashbacks of his cruelty as prison warden, Fishburne rules the screen with […][...]
Review: Becoming Nobody
— by BEV QUESTAD — Through 1968-71, while the US was blasting up Vietnam, I was searching for the ideal country and the perfect place to live. I learned different languages and attended foreign schools. I joined the many young people who were searching for something better. Inevitably we couldn’t find peace and justice in […][...]
Review: For Sama
— by BEV QUESTAD — On January 29, 2013, Aleppo woke up to a new massacre. Men with hands bound were found with gunshots in their heads floating downstream like trash bobbing on the current. A Syrian woman, Waad al-Kateab, now lauded as an award-winning photojournalist, filmed her experiences beginning in 2012 when the Syrian […][...]