“A fulfilled dream is a disappointed dream” — Amos Oz In a quiet moment in Natalie Portman’s (“Knight of Cups”) beautiful and poetic A Tale of Love and Darkness, a mother says to her young son, “If you have to choose between telling a lie or insulting someone, choose to be generous.” When the boy…
During World War II, many European countries occupied by Nazi Germany had resistance movements that fought against the invaders with whatever methods they could. Czechoslovakia’s resistance led to Adolf Hitler’s third in command, SS General Reinhard Heydrich and architect of the Final Solution, being stationed to Prague, where he instituted a brutal crackdown on the…
When I first saw the trailers for When the Bough Breaks, I was excited. It looked like “Obsessed,” “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” or “Single White Female,” except with fewer white people (something most movies these days could benefit from). When I first sat down in the theater, I was still excited. The pacing…
The nervous hell of a new job interview is satirized, then sentimentalized, then psychologized in writer/director Anthony Garland’s tonally scattered short Ophelia. The titular character (played with fair restraint by Ali Mueller, “Category 5”) arrives on time in fancy business attire and has only a moment to size up her competition before being called in…
As the story goes, in October of 1994, three college students wandered into the woods of Burkittsville, Maryland to investigate the legend of the Blair Witch. In the summer of 1999, their footage was released as “The Blair Witch Project,” a small movie that cost just over $20,000 to make, and instantaneously solidified its place…
It’s tough to make a religious film in 2016. Not that they aren’t produced anymore, far from it, but that their demographic continues to diminish. An increasingly secularized temperament in the world today means the topic of religion or spirituality in cinema becomes discussed in ever more derisive ways. For audiences, it was difficult to…
Outsourcing. Giving out one’s resources so that others can invest in them, make them grow, better, more — investors with a proven record in being successful insofar as they have funds to invest in what one cannot. Outsource or stagnate. Outsource or disappear. Outsource or hold back as times continue to move forward. Outsource or…
