Magellanes is an excellent political thriller that reveals Peru’s history – a film review
September 30, 2016
“Memory is a mirror that scandalously lies.” –Julio Cortázar
Tapping into generalized trauma resulting from the armed conflict in Peru between the army and the Shining Path, a militant group, Magellanes delivers a powerful experience that will resonate with those unfamiliar with the complex and violent history it depicts. The film delivers strong performances and heightened, suspenseful moments that build as the film progresses.
Deepwater Horizon and the fragility of humanity in the face of capitalism — a film review
September 29, 2016
With Deepwater Horizon, director Peter Berg returns to another botched, fatal mission featuring Mark Wahlberg. Whereas Lone Survivor (2014) involved the military and bad communication that ended with the loss of life, something more disturbing lies at the heart of his latest film: capitalism above humanity. Based on an in-depth “New York Times” article by David Barstow, David Rohde and Stephanie Saul, screenwriters Matthew Michael Carnahan and Matthew Sand capture a series of falling dominoes that ultimately led to the worst oil drilling disaster in U.S. history. It killed 11 men.
Wars are shocking and impactful phenomena that have devastating consequences for the human experience. As Betrand Russel once said, “War does not determine who is right – only who is left.” It is in this vein that French filmmaker Christian Carion has directed his latest film, Come What May, a suspense-filled drama he co-wrote with Andrew Bampfield and Laure Irrmann that depicts Nazi atrocities in such a vivid way it will get the audience furious all over again about that terrible regime. Despite a formulaic feeling that will be familiar to those who have seen many World War II films, the violence is quite vivid and inescapable, set in contrast to the bucolic European landscape, which is heightened by strong camera work and a score from a well-known composer.
Is That A Gun in Your Pocket? misses the comedic mark — a film review
September 27, 2016
What better way to poke fun at gun-ownership issues than to use laughs for criticism. This is the well-intentioned journey that writer-director Matt Cooper embarks on with Is That A Gun in Your Pocket? Set in Rockford, Texas, the film presents a small family, with Jenna (Andrea Anders) as the mother and wife who, after a shooting incident with her son, decides to start a movement to get rid of guns. However, her husband Glenn (Matt Passmore) happens to be a hunting aficionado. His hobby is “his only outlet.” It is in these early scenes that the film establishes that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, in the most unsubtle way possible.
Loneliness, Anger and Loss in Max Rose — a film review
September 23, 2016
Memory is a funny thing, it ebbs and flows with one’s mood and circumstances and so does perspective. In Max Rose, we meet a recent widower (played by Jerry Lewis), who finds reason to believe that his wife of 65 years, Eva (Claire Bloom) was in love with another man. He declares at her funeral that the marriage “was a lie.” Max, who is already a cantankerous old man, becomes even more recalcitrant after his loss and engaging in a revisionist journey wherein he lets his own demons pollute his mind. Lewis, in his first feature role in more than 20 years, does well in presenting the depression and anger that Max suffers, and it is perhaps the most redeeming quality of the film because something else is still missing.
Our earth is a delicate, sensitive, living, breathing organism that needs the care and attention we have not given it. Taking it for granted and wishing to control nature have been the markers of modern life. However, ancestral knowledge always recognized the importance of maintenance of that ecosystem that supports our life. In Seed: The Untold Story, Directors Taggart Siegel and Jon Betz take us back to rethink that important relationship of communing with the earth that feeds us.
The latest documentary by director Jeff Feuerzeig, The JT Leroy Story, explores the making of the character of JT Leroy, an author who rose to fame in the early 2000s as a literary sensation by writing about his life, which included sexual abuse, homelessness and coping with HIV. A publisher recalls the work as a novelty, a new voice. However, the story of JT Leroy was a fantasy, a made-up story concocted by Laura Albert, a 40-year-old San Francisco woman originally from New York. She started using characters since early on in her life as she felt uncomfortable in her own skin. She used these personas partly to escape her life, which was full of trauma and abuse but also, seemingly, to get attention. She even attended therapy sessions as her character, melding fantasy and her life into different personas.
Independent Ethos 