I don’t cover Sundance Film Festival as a journalist, but my wife and I do buy an online package each year that gives us access to ten films. Among our choices this year were three documentaries from the US. Jane Elliott Against the World, directed by Judd Ehrlich,...
For at least twenty years I’ve been putting forth Darrel’s Dozen with my top films of the year. Rarely (if ever) has a dozen been defined as twelve. Yet, I’ve always had a numbered list—being very inexact about which is my very favorite or which may make the top...
“You don’t want to waste a second, and I was wasting lots of seconds prior.” Dying is something we rarely want to think about. We may think we’re too busy living to spend our time considering death. But, in Come See Me in the Good Light from director Ryan White, we...
“We’ll just be here when they need us.” A Little Prayer, directed by Angus MacLachlan, is a story of decisions and consequences. It plays out within a family that seems to be happy and caring. And, for the most part it is. Yet, there is a constant undercurrent of pain...
“We must create a record.” Creating a record of events is a primary foundation of journalism. It is also the function of documentary filmmaking. My Undesirable Friends: Part I - Last Air in Moscow, directed by Julia Loktev, is a record of those who create important...
Is there any room for mercy in justice? Is there any justice in mercy? What if we substitute “vengeance” for “mercy”? Jafar Panahi brings these issues to the fore in It Was Just an Accident. While the film, as with all Panahi’s films, is firmly footed in Iranian...
A popular poster in dorm rooms when I was in college read, “War is not healthy for children and other living things.” It seems so obvious. Yet each generation gets a new chance to realize the truth of that statement. Case in point: The Voice of Hind Rajab, from...
In Sherman Alexie’s The Business of Fancydancing, there is a scene in which the main character, Seymour Polatkin (Evan Adams) recalls coming out to his traditional Native American grandmother. He tells her that he has two spirits. Actually, I think he has many...
What do you do when you need someone to be a mourner, or a groom, or a father, or a companion? What if you need someone to apologize to a spouse? Why not hire an actor to fill the role? That is the basis of Hikari’s film, Rental Family. Phillip Vandarpleog (Brendan...