I am a retired father of two living with my wife in Vancouver, B.C. who has had a lifelong interest in the arts.
Character growth seems like a lost art in many films these days but I’m happy to say that self-discovery plays a prominent role in The Descendants, Alexander Payne’s first film since Sideways seven years ago. Based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, George Clooney is Matt King, a well-to-do real estate lawyer, who lives…
Based on an actual racial incident in Gothenburg, Sweden in which a group of black teenagers carried out a series of thefts of other children’s personal belongings for a period of two years, Swedish director Ruben Östlund’s Play is about using psychological game playing rather than name-calling, threats, or overt violence to bully your target….
It is estimated that there are between 21.4 and 32.1 illegal immigrants or 10-15% of the total of all immigrants in the world. How to deal with illegal immigration has been a source of controversy in most Western countries and raises many complex political, economic and social issues. Le Havre, however, the latest film by…
A middle-aged truck driver’s long years of hauling lumber from Asuncion, Paraguay to Buenos Aires is etched on his grizzled face. Looking as if he hasn’t shaved in weeks, maybe months, his body language displays a passive solitude, as if he has become reconciled to a world of emptiness. Winner of the Camera d’Or for…
Hidden inside a birthday cake and smuggled out of the country, the 75-minute “effort”, This is Not a Film, tells us all we need to know about the cruelty of the Iranian dictatorship and the courage of film director Jafar Panahi. Panahi, who has given the world such masterpieces as The White Balloon, The Circle,…
Daniel Cormack’s ten-minute short, Amelia and Michael, has little dialogue but draws us in with its compelling use of gestures, facial expressions, and subtle glances to establish an unsettling mood. Featuring outstanding performances from Natasha Powell and Anthony Head as an estranged couple named Amelia and Michael, the film is a compelling experience of two…
“Most events are inexpressible, taking place in a realm which no word has ever entered, and more inexpressible than all else are works of art, mysterious existences, the life of which, while ours passes away, endures.” — Rainer Maria Rilke Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams is a fascinating journey back in time. In this…
