Alan Gerstle is a fiction writer and essayist who also teaches film and creative writing. He lives on the East Coast of the United States.
The good news about the film Condor’s Nest, an international revenge thriller set in 1950s Latin America that features a surviving WWII American airman Will Spalding (Jacob Keohane, “Halloween Kills”) in search of a sadistic SS Colonel (Arnold Vosloo, “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra”), is that it conforms to a three-act structure. This is…
Son of Monarchs, a feature film written and directed by Alexis Gambis, a microbiologist and film director/screenwriter, is not the type of work likely to be appreciated — or perhaps even tolerated — by moviegoers that prefer tightly constructed, thematically succinct cinema. It is multi-layered in its storyline with a mélange of styles that range…
If the title of the film Naked Singularity piques your interest, a brief investigation via your favorite search engine will reveal that it’s a term used in astrophysics to describe a theoretical phenomenon that may exist in black holes. But since this is a film review and not an entry for a layperson’s guide to…
The Virtuoso, an edgy, slow-burn thriller directed by Nick Stagliano, hosts an impressive cast of pedigreed actors recognizable from a breadth of film and television appearances. We’re treated to Sir Anthony Hopkins, who, now acting in his 80s, has remarked that he’s having a lot of fun nowadays, choosing from a bin-load of scripts that…
William Shatner, who in real life recently turned 90, should be commended for playing the lead in any feature film. That said, Senior Moment, a bit of cinematic fluff directed by Giorgio Serafini, is not the best vehicle for him to show off his acting chops. The script is not developed sufficiently for him or…
Within a few minutes of watching The Father, you may get the sense that this is a dialogue-intense film that seems to bear a resemblance to a stage play. This perception is enhanced by the closed space in which the action occurs — a suitable, lived-in apartment of an educated man with décor that includes…
Earth’s delicate balance is a theme that pervades the modern ecology movement, and the potential disruption of this balance is the prime factor behind the fear of global warming and overall climate change among professional biologists, amateur naturalists, and concerned citizens. Fantastic Fungi, an 80-minute documentary, attempts to contribute to the public discourse by presenting…
