Film

A CRISIS OF NORMALCY Israel, in spite of its ultra-orthodox religious influences, is a fine country for LGBTQ rights. And its film industry has certainly proven it with some outstanding pro-gay films: (Yossi &  Jagger [2002], Walk on Water [2004], The Bubble [2006]). Now it has another winner in a thoughtful and entertaining examination of a…

BACURAU TO THE FUTURE If you don’t allow Bacurau to unfold itself on its own terms, you may find one of the most surprising and daring films of the year maddening and alienating. It isn’t always easy to decipher just what game is afoot in this genre-bending Brazilian film, but moviegoers are going to eat…

NOT YOUR TYPICAL WAR STORY Mind the spelling, Mr. Tarantino calls this his “bunch of guys on a mission” movie. Set in 1944, the film follows two parallel stories that quickly converge. In the first, an American group of Jewish soldiers called “The Basterds”, led by Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), plans terror attacks against German…

FILMMAKING AS A PROFESSION: WHERE TO STUDY? Cinema is a world of dreams, illusions, and fantasies. That is why any girl dreams of becoming a movie star. However, everyone who connects their lives with cinema faces the problem of choosing a university. A primitive lever drives a rotating disk and, with a chatter, translates a…

CATNIP FOR THIS CATS LOVER OK, I’m fully aware that many people find Cats the musical a baffling phenomenon. I’ve loved it from the start, when I saw it with my husband on Broadway. He hated it. Later I dragged him clawing and mewling to the now shuttered Shubert Theatre in Los Angeles, and he…

THE ILLUSION OF SAFETY If you have ever thought, I can’t imagine what it must be like to be in a situation as awful as a school shooting, this incredible new short film will show you. Without bloodshed, writer/director/producer Fabrice Joubert creates an effectively tense film with little more than a ten-minute run-time. There’s just…

5 BEST EDUCATIONAL FILMS FOR STUDENTS When a holiday season is just about the corner, many students, who are happy to forget about a paper writing service they usually take advantage of but still are not willing to stop learning, start looking for effective ways to spend their free time productively. Thoughts like “I need…

HITTING THE RIGHT NOTES In 30 of the United States, LGBTQ people risk losing employment simply because of who they are. In Mississippi and North Carolina, laws have been passed to strip them of basic human rights. In this seriously divided nation, hatred is endorsed by the present administration. Far from encouraging love of one’s…

A FILM THAT’S NOT JOKING AROUND Joker, directed and co-written by Todd Phillips and Scott Silver, is a dark, disturbing, profound film that has tapped into the zeitgeist of today’s class divides with a vengeance. This is not a comic book movie, although DC Films is one of the production companies. In this prequel, Joaquin…

JAPANESE HORROR FILM REVIEWS One might ask what is so special about Japanese horror movies, as Japan’s input into global culture is now strongly associated with animation, fashion, and toys. However, the names of the horror films listed below are so widely known that a specific tendency becomes almost apparent. Let’s read on and try…

MOLLY’S GAME: HOW DOES THE FILM COMPARE TO THE REAL STORY? Molly’s Game is based on the real story of Molly Bloom; an Olympic Skier turned entrepreneur who made a lot of money running high-stakes underground poker tournaments. When a movie is based on a person’s life, some of the sections are likely to be…

SHAZAM! Two Captain Marvel films were released in the space of a month during this year. For those who didn’t know, the superhero from Shazam! with its funny white cape and bad lightning suit, was once the original Captain Marvel. For decades, some lawsuits and a lot of creative scrutiny later, the comic book audience…

DO WE CARE? Being a major Quentin Tarantino fan, I was really looking forward to seeing this film. I just knew I was going to love it. But unfortunately that was not the case. My biggest problem with the film was that I didn’t really care about the characters. The one exception is Margot Robbie,…

IT’S STILL SCARY The Witch Hunt has been part of the American psyche since Salem. Lately though, the cries of “witch hunt” evoke not the green of Elphaba, rather a nauseous orange. And while that might seem a horse of a different color, let us not forget the Red Scare in which the self-serving machinations…