I am a retired father of two living with my wife in Vancouver, B.C. who has had a lifelong interest in the arts.
“Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young, nor weary of the search for it when he has grown old. For, no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul.” — Epicurus Filled with dream and fantasy sequences in the tradition of the great Italian director…
Based on a short story by Katha Pollit, a columnist for the Nation magazine, Learning to Drive is a small movie with a big heart. While the film is risk averse and will not be mistaken for a timeless work of art, its story of two middle-aged people of vastly different backgrounds assisting each other…
When everything in your life is looking rosy, there is always someone who will tell you that your happiness is on shaky ground. Though most of the time these naysayers will not profit from your misfortune, such is not the case in The Big Short, Adam McKay’s (“Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues”) hard-hitting comedy/drama about…
“Art thou pale for weariness of climbing heaven and gazing on Earth, wandering companionless?” — Percy Bysshe Shelley, “To The Moon” A film about loss, loneliness, and love, Todd Haynes’ (“I’m Not There”) Carol is the story of Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”), a nineteen year-old salesgirl whose chance encounter…
While we are now awash in public expressions of hysteria directed towards Muslims, the voice of fear in American society has always been there in one form or another. Witness The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the forced removal of Japanese-Americans to internment camps during World War II, and the on-going discriminatory laws against blacks…
We know, in that achingly familiar phrase, that “absence makes the heart grow fonder” but we sometimes forget that our memories will remain only in our experience and cannot be recreated in time. It is a hard lesson to be learned and one that Eilis Lacey (pronounced Ailish) (Saoirse Ronan, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”), a…
“Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides” — William Shakespeare, King Lear Except for unrelenting bulldogs like Seymour Hersh (who had to publish his latest article outside of the U.S.), true investigative journalism seems to have become as obsolete as the 8-Track Tape. Tom McCarthy’s (“The Cobbler”) Spotlight, however, reminds us of what it was…
