Music has long been known to bring people together irrespective of language barriers, and few situations require people to come together as crucially as those in which our lives are at stake. Based on a real life hostage incident in Peru, Bel Canto (“beautiful song”) was originally a book written by Ann Patchett about this…
“Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home” — John Howard Payne The Smothers Brothers they are not. Brothers Eli (John C. Reilly, “Kong: Skull Island”) and Charlie (Joaquin Phoenix, “You Were Never Really Here”) Sisters, known to all as the Sisters Brothers, are deadly…
Ah, the simple joys of the family vacation. The great outdoors. The open road. The company of loved ones. The mobile home haunted by the superpowered spirit of a homicidal madman. Charles (Greg Violand, “Carol”) is the owner of the “Toybox” — a ramshackle RV — and he’s joined by his son Steve (Jeff Denton,…
American Dresser is a simple road-trip tale of a weary older man who, after discovering a secret shortly after his wife dies, embarks on a coast-to-coast motorcycle trip to help exorcise some demons, get some closure, and enjoy life once more. It’s exceptionally well acted and directed, with just a few potholes in the plot…
In 1915, D. W. Griffith’s film “The Birth of a Nation” was released, en route to becoming one of the most influential and controversial films in cinema history. Griffith’s historical epic created indelible imprints on film content and style, particularly in the areas of racial representation and editing. A century later, Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman attempts…
Baronesa is the ironic title of Brazilian director Juliana Antunes’ documentary or docu-drama, a film that presents life in the Brazilian favelas through a number of scenes that primarily focus on the daily lives of two of its residents, Andreia (Andreia Pereira de Sousa), a manicurist/beautician, and her friend, Leidiane (Leid Ferreira). The title’s irony…
I watched Support the Girls right on the heels of “We the Animals” and “Crazy Rich Asians,” and it requires no stretch of the imagination to view this coincidental triple-feature as three distinct and distinctive representations of the meaning and function of family. The employees of Double Whammies — particularly the young, attractive, well endowed…
