2015-08-12T17:30:55-06:00

Last updated on: August 12, 2015 at 5:30 pm   By

  The UP Network continues it’s mission to “uplift” viewers with a new original dramatic series about cops and a family, “Ties that Bind.” Kelli Williams (“The Practice”) is Seattle detective Allison McLean who with her partner, Devin Stewart (Dion Johnstone), arrests her brother, played by Luke Perry, for aggravated assault. This means his two teenaged children will go into foster care. But Allison and her husband Matt (Jonathan Scarfe) decide to bring the kids into their home, joining their... Read more

2015-08-05T13:09:20-06:00

Last updated on: August 5, 2015 at 1:09 pm   By

I received the following press release a couple of days ago. I’ve seen the film and my review will follow nearer the film’s release date. “You can never lose your faith. Faith is nourishment … Faith is life.” – Jorge Galleguillos, Survivor, Copiapo Mine Collapse In 2010, a mine in Chile collapsed trapping 33 miners 2,300 feet underground with no way to escape. You may recall the news headlines as the entire world watched and banded together to help with... Read more

2015-07-28T19:03:55-06:00

Last updated on: July 28, 2015 at 7:03 pm   By

I was a little surprised to be invited to a press screening for “Vacation” – an downdating  or unbooting of the old Chevy Chase Griswold Family vacation comedies. From the opening lyrics of the soundtrack, laden with “f” bombs, well, it just got worse. If any family has a vacation like this, all I can say is: someone call the Department of Children Services. The film, too, is child abuse, adult abuse and elder abuse all in one. That song... Read more

2015-07-25T12:23:34-06:00

Last updated on: July 25, 2015 at 12:23 pm   By

In the still-growing canon Holocaust cinema, its victims and survivors, it’s impact on history and humanity, there are fact-based stories such as “Schindler’s List” and fictional stories such as “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.” There are also searing documentaries such as “Memories of the Camps” filmed by the allied troops that liberated the death camps at the end of World War II. “Phoenix,” opening this weekend (July 24, 2015) in Los Angeles, is a fictional tale, though it could... Read more

2015-07-24T16:08:06-06:00

Last updated on: July 24, 2015 at 4:08 pm   By

While illegal immigration grabs political headlines in the United States, it is a major global human and social concern for those caught between borders while escaping war and poverty to seek a better life. The 2013 U.S. film “A Better Life” took a sensitive look at a Mexican father and son in Los Angeles. Now, French filmmakers turn a light on their county’s reality in the thoroughly engaging film “Samba.” Samba (Omar Sy) is an undocumented immigrant from Senegal who... Read more

2015-07-16T15:19:05-06:00

Last updated on: July 16, 2015 at 3:19 pm   By

  Beginning in October 1965, an anti-Communist purge, rather conveniently instigated by a failed coup, led to the ousting of Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno. This was followed by the U.S.-supported presidency of Suharto, who held office for 31 years. It is estimated that the purge, that lasted into 1966, and carried out by local militias under the direction of local and regional leaders, resulted in the brutal torture and deaths of at least 500,000 people. Many of the people who... Read more

2015-07-14T11:25:18-06:00

Last updated on: July 14, 2015 at 11:25 am   By

This summer’s “Tomorrowland” from Disney and director Brad Bird and “Mad Max: Fury Road,” a “reboot” of the original Mad Max trilogy from the 1970s and ’80s from Australian director George Miller, go together better than you might think at first glance. Seeing them in tandem makes all the difference. “Mad Max: Fury Road” is the typical post-apocalyptic dystopian flick with themes of hope and redemption and regeneration. The lead characters are courageous, violent fighters and hope is a mirage.... Read more

2015-07-11T18:47:24-06:00

Last updated on: July 11, 2015 at 6:47 pm   By

    Ok, props to the filmmakers Chris Lofing and Travis Cluff for getting the movie made and distributed. It’s proficient. But it’s “Blair With Project” hand-held camera style is as annoying as the guy whose hands hold the camera, Ryan Shoos as the bully classmate, well, Ryan Shoos. I only went to see it because my 14 year-old nephew, who is visiting, wanted to see it but I’m sorry we did. It was too graphic and I loathe bullying,... Read more

2015-07-08T14:38:30-06:00

Last updated on: July 8, 2015 at 2:38 pm   By

    My cousin just posted this on Facebook noting that this generation and those to come will never know the thrill of renting a video at Blockbuster. Technology develops so fast.  Technology is so disposable but memories can last forever. Yet, if I go by what I learned in Pixar’s “Inside Out,” it’s not worth making technology memories “core memories” – because they are here today, gone tomorrow. Pixar’s next film should be called “Gone with the Wind Redux.”... Read more

2015-06-30T08:38:07-06:00

Last updated on: June 30, 2015 at 8:38 am   By

  This comprehensive and compact docudrama premiering tonight on PBS (10pm), “1913: Seeds of Conflict” reveals little known facts that conflated to become what writer/director Ben Loeterman proposes as the root causes for today’s ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinians. Almost a half million Muslims, 60,000 Christians and 20,000 Sephardic (i.e. Mediterranean) Jews lived together peacefully enough in the years before World War I when Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire and ruled by Ottoman law. Then with the... Read more

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