RESISTANCE – Review by Martha K Baker
Recently, the Resistance against Nazis in World War II is back in the news. Last year saw the publication of
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Reviews
VIVARIUM – Review by Susan Granger
Watch carefully as the introductory scene with the cuckoo birds shows how they trick other birds into raising their young. It’s a metaphor that foreshadows what’s about to unfold.
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TAPE – Review by MaryAnn Johanson
How do you get people to listen to things they don’t want to hear? How do you get them to understand things they don’t want to contemplate? Human blindness to uncomfortable issues is not limited to one realm of grief and suffering, of course, but it’s a particular problem when it comes to sexual harassment, intimidation, and rape that so many women are subjected to.
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BLOW THE MAN DOWN – Review by Martha K Baker
The title refers, of course, to the sea shanty most kids used to learn in the 5th grade. And so this original movie on Amazon begins with that ditty, sung by the fishers of Easter Cove, Maine, on the docks of that little, insular Maine coastal town.
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HONEY BOY – Review by Susan Granger
Inspired by his own childhood, actor Shia LaBeouf wrote this memory drama in which he plays James Lort, a thinly fictionalized version of his own father. Trained as a rodeo clown, he’s a bitter, divorced Vietnam War veteran and recovering addict who’s emotionally abusive to his 12 year-old son Otis , who works as an actor on television.
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MOVIE OF THE WEEK April 3, 2020: RADIUM GIRLS
Lydia Dean Pilcher and Ginny Mohler’s fact-based drama Radium Girls may be set a century in the past, but certain aspects of the story feel as timely as today’s headlines — for instance, when Joey King’s character Bessie bemoans: “Why is there so much wrong in the world that no one knows about?” That feeling of helplessness in the face of events that feel completely out of your control is bound to strike a chord with today’s audiences.
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IN FLOWERS THROUGH SPACE (OXFF2020) – Review by Diane Carson
For anyone not conversant with the Fibonacci sequence, and that certainly includes me, In Flowers Through Space is an educational, cerebral and auditory experience that asks for one simple indulgence: abandon conventional, unadventurous ideas about music for at least its sixty-six minutes.
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THE TRUTH – Review by Martha K Baker
Truth to tell, this story might have been more promising on paper than it ended up on film. Certainly, the cast promises more than any of the stars deliver. The director, Hirokazu Koreeda, became known last year for his film Shoplifters. Those who thought that movie was overblown will not expect much from The Truth.
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BIG TIME ADOLESCENCE – Review by Sarah Ward
This isn’t just a movie about a kid attempting to be popular, endeavoring to woo his first girlfriend and stressing out his parents, although the template definitely fits. It’s a film about a teen who has grown up with one concept of maturity and one vision of approaching life with a casual, anything goes, “you only live once” attitude, but finds himself reassessing his choices — as well as the friend that’s shaped them.
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WE ARE AS GODS (SXSW2020) – Review by Lois Alter Mark
Imagine if someone in real life was trying to bring back animals that were extinct. That idea is explored – epically – by directors David Alvarado and Jason Sussberg in their fascinating documentary, We Are As Gods, focusing on Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Catalog founder, environmentalist and leader of the counterculture since the 1960s.
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