I am a retired father of two living with my wife in Vancouver, B.C. who has had a lifelong interest in the arts.
Sixto Rodriguez, a little known American folk-rock singer/songwriter in the tradition of Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens, released two albums in the early 1970s, Cold Fact, and Coming From Reality but failed to achieve any popularity. Though praised by critics, his haunting songs about love and loss, drugs and politics, such as “I Wonder, Cause,”…
According to the late author Michael Talbot, “What we perceive as reality is only a canvas waiting for us to draw upon it any picture we want. Magic is our birthright, no more or less miraculous than our ability to compute the reality we want when we are in our dreams.” In the comedy-drama Ruby…
If you are looking for an alternative to blockbuster superhero movies or Hollywood cookie-cutter romantic comedies, you can do no better than Oliver Nakache and Eric Toledano’s film, The Intouchables. Though it has aspects that are familiar and even formulaic, the film redeems itself with its honest emotion and humane message of how vastly different…
Whether you think bullying is a recent cultural phenomenon, or one that simply reflects human nature and has been around for thousands of years, the reality shown in Lee Hirsch’s heartbreaking documentary Bully, is devastating. It is one thing to read about incidents of bullying and teen suicides, but when a face is put to…
Based on the 1952 play by Terrence Rattigan, Terence Davies meshes personal pain with the struggles of the British people to overcome the effects of a devastating war in his latest film, The Deep Blue Sea. Known as the British Terence Malick, Davies has directed only seven films in the last 35 years including masterpieces…
Though Joseph Cedar’s Footnote (original title Hearat Shulayim) is a look at the Israeli academic community’s insularity and hubris, the problems it raises are universal and the film could most likely take place anywhere in the world. One of five nominated films at this year’s Oscars in the Best Foreign Film category, Footnote allows us…
The poet Rilke said, “There is only one journey. Going inside yourself. Here something blooms; from out of a silent crevice an unknowing weed emerges singing into existence.” The unknowing weed takes its time to sing but sing it does in director Anh Dung Tran’s film Norwegian Wood, his first since “Vertical Ray of the…
