?Lucy, I?m home.? Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez were the biggest TV stars (by far) of the 1950s. Their show I Love Lucy was seen by up to 60 million people a week. That show took us into the home of Ricky and Lucy Ricardo, a small apartment filled with hilarity. But of...
?These horses will run till they drop. You have to tell a horse it?s time to stop.? Many people want to pass on a legacy. It is more than just wanting to give something of value to a future generation. It can be a validation of one?s life. It can be something that...
I recently had the chance to talk via Zoom with Clint Bentley, the director and co-writer of Jockey. The film is the story of an aging jockey coming to the end of his career. He discovers one of the new young jockeys claims to be his son. The film won an Audience...
?Take a look at yourself, sinner.? That sign in a carnival funhouse should be a warning to viewers of Nightmare Alley, the latest film from Guillermo del Toro, that we may be judged by what we see here. We may think this is a distorted reflection, but perhaps it just...
?There are no roads to Shangri-la from our parts of Belfast.? In Belfast, Kenneth Branagh, who wrote and directed, creates a fictionalized version of his childhood. It is a film built on the nostalgia of youth with a background of the violence of the sectarian...
When I got a ?For Your Consideration? feeler for an anime film with the title The Laws of the Universe: The Age of Elohim, ?I thought how can I resist this one?? I had to see how another culture would look at the God of the Jewish and Christian traditions. As...
How often do we try to judge based on assumptions that may not be true? In The Pit, Latvia?s submission for Best International Feature consideration, there are many assumptions that lead the characters to make judgements that may or may not be justified. Markuss, a...
If you think National Champions is a story about college football, you may be disappointed. I don?t recall seeing a single football play (although I may have missed some clips in the TV sports hype that opens the film). Rather this is a film about the business...
?Each day is a new day. We get up each morning and start again.? That is especially true for the characters in Sanremo from director Miroslav Mandi?. As dementia removes memories, it can make each day a horror, a challenge, or a wonder. Sanremo is Slovenia?s entry for...