As the Newport Beach Film Festival comes to an end, I need to give kudos to the staff and volunteers for their wonderful work in making the festival a outstanding event. While it has an interesting premise, I had problems with Love Is All You Need? The premise of the...
?The only value we have as human beings is the risks we are willing to take.? Ernest Hemingway, winner of a Pulitzer for fiction and the Nobel Prize for literature, may be as well known for his lifestyle as his writing. He lived--shall we say--boldly and with...
It was a dark and moody day at the festival. The day opened with Call of the Void a noirish tale of love and madness. Steve is determined to win back the love of his life Veronica yet it seems clear she wants nothing to do with him. In fact, even his therapist tells...
The Chinese film Red Mountain is a minor family saga, told by a son about his father and grandfather who served as mountain rangers in a remote section of China. When the (then) young father wants to leave to go to college and see the world, the grandfather forbids...
The Easter Rising of 1916 may be the Irish equivalent of America?s Battle of Lexington. It marks the effective beginning of the road to independence. To celebrate and commemorate the centennial of the Rising, the Irish Film Board curated ?After ?16?, a collection of...
It seems that most every festival has a time travel conundrum, which I love. Something about the paradoxes involved appeals to me. This year at NBFF that is the French film House of Time. A reclusive genius invites a group of his friends to spend a weekend at a...
Flexibility always comes in handy when you make your plans for a festival. For example, the first film I had planned on seeing was for some reason cancelled. That can happen for various reasons, but it does occasionally. I feel for the staff and volunteers who have to...
We often think of philosophers as those who sit in ivory towers unaffected by the actual world. They think their thoughts about the nature of things without really understanding what matters. But often philosophy comes out of profound experiences. Vita Activa: The...
I look forward to film festivals and it is time for me to head to the beach for the 17th annual Newport Beach Film Festival. This year there are over 350 films from 50 different countries. Obviously I won?t get to them all. But I like to try to find a broad sample of...