Monthly Archives: December 2019

Imagine “The Breakfast Club” set in “Twin Peaks.” There’s a mysterious disappearance, adults misbehaving or just plain mentally ill and their kids acting out, toying with adult perversions, obsessed with menstruation and singing, in plaintive choral settings, the music of … Continue reading →

“Signs and Meaning in the Cinema” was the grad school textbook I got the most out of. Iconic images freighted with symbolic meaning, layers of interpretation added to film beyond what dialogue, exposition and performance could carry — Wollen made … Continue reading →

“Ashes in the Snow” is a game attempt at adding Stalin’s gulags to the horrors of Hitler’s Holocaust to our collective memory of the crimes of World War II. The Russians beat the Germans in the institution of slave labor … Continue reading →

A photographer, obviously new to covering Israeli courts, asks the woman about to give a statement at the end of the trial for her name and title. The scrum of photographers are too busy to react, though you can hear … Continue reading →

An actress and her daughter have an amusing interaction upon reuniting in this French dramedy. Ethan Hawke is also in the cast of this March 20 US release. https://youtu.be/LoNoOn6c0gA

Here’s one that should have come off, but doesn’t. “Holy Expectations” or “Embarazada por obra y gracia” is a faith-based musical farce from Colombia that comically re-imagines the Nativity story in modern day Colombia. It’s got sherbet-colored houses and Panama … Continue reading →

It’s an odd niche, I’ll admit. But I’ve always been fascinated by the origin stories of professions. The art of criminal investigation unfolding in “The Name of the Rose,” Medieval legal defense arising in “The Advocate,” medicine moving out of … Continue reading →

Sometimes, it’s the cover-up, not the crime, the old political saying goes. But sometimes, it’s the crime AND the cover-up. That’s the thesis of “The Photographer of Mauthausen” (“El fotógrafo de Mauthausen”), a Catalan/Spanish story from the Holocaust. Because mass … Continue reading →

Snowboarding ventures into the realm of the rich and giant-carbon-footprint classes with “Dark Matter,” a lovely “virgin powder” downhill documentary shot in the pristine peaks near Tordrillo Heli (helicopter) Skiing lodge way up north in Alaska. Snowboarding icons Travis Rice … Continue reading →

Here’s an unsophisticated, ribald and trigger-happy “Knives Out” for those who like their whodunits with a tad more spice, bloodshed and profanity. “Kill Ben Lyk” is a daft and dizzy Brit farce about a lot of people with the same … Continue reading →