All nations share the same basic story — us versus them. The oldest of narrative conflicts, that story has been fundamental in the process of nation building and it’s an inevitable necessity if you’re going to set-up and patrol borders. National identity has always been tied up in the need to think of your side…
In memoriam: American Democracy Mystics heal borders. They are the frontiers’ physicians. Surgeons of the lines. As scalpels come their words, their prayers that no one hears, for no one knows silence better than those whose words shall meet no ears. As scalpels come their prayers, immersed all in flesh and blood, in infatuated vessels…
Filmmaker Margy Kinmonth’s new feature documentary Revolution: New Art for a New World should delight art fans and historians across the globe. It offers up a plethora of Russian Avant-Garde art from 1917-1932 to view from the comfort of your cinema seat (or home recliner) and simultaneously talks one through the accompanying history of this…
Sometimes gripping narratives detailing the familiar plight of teen girls do not necessarily have to be about the adversity of choice such as pregnancy, alcoholism, prostitution, domestic abuse, illiteracy or homelessness. There are youthful feminine coming-of-age stories that feel equally captivating in inspiration, determination and the spirit of competition and tradition. In filmmaker Otto Bell’s…
Lew Ayres, who starred in the classic 1931 anti-war film (and Best Picture Academy Award winner), “All Quiet on the Western Front,” was so affected by that movie, he became a conscientious objector and served as a medic in World War II (and was later to earn a Best Actor nomination for “Johnny Belinda”). Others…
The latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is a curious film of links. There are links between its world and the wider MCU. The central premise depends on links between different dimensions, from which sorcerers draw and utilize mystical energy. And it manages the tricky task of forging links between magic and science,…
I’m thinking of a movie. It stars a man and a woman struggling against the elements to survive a vast, empty, lonesome, and perilous environment on their journey home. Oh, and it’s directed by someone with the last name of Cuarón. Anyone care to take a guess? If you guessed “Gravity,” you’d be correct. But…
