The Surrogate is an exploration of making difficult ethical and emotional decisions. It gives us a situation that doesn?t have a clear correct answer, but does have various perspectives to look at the issues involved. We may have our own ideas of what should happen,...
The 93rd Bomber Group was a highly decorated American fighting unit in the Second World War. In Return to Hardwick we revisit a bit of the unit?s history. Hardwick Aerodrome 104, in England?s East Anglia, was an active airfield from which B-24 bombers would set out on...
In Abel Ferrara?s Tommaso, the lines between imagination and reality are never clearly demarcated. That is true not only for the viewer, but, as the film progresses, it is an increasingly difficult boundary for the protagonist to navigate. Tommaso (Willem Dafoe) is an...
?You?re the adult, right?? Adulthood is something that Bridget (Kelly O?Sullivan, who wrote the script) hasn?t quite mastered, in spite of her thirty-four years. She?s just kind of drifting along with no great ambition or direction. When she gets a summer job as a...
?How can it be that a white British woman knows more about Mexican cooking that anyone else?? Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy is the story of a passion. When a British woman found her way to Mexico in 1957, she discovered a love for the food and the culture. For the past...
?All this will not be finished, but let us begin.? (John F. Kennedy) For nearly 60 years, Americans have volunteered to go to other countries to build communities and form bonds through the Peace Corps. A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps, directed by Alana...
Corridos are Mexican folk ballads. Sometimes those ballads are used to relate history that is deemed important. The Ballad of Esequiel Hern?ndez is essentially a film corrido that recalls the 1997 shooting of an 18 year old high school student on the US-Mexico border...
In Joey Klein?s Castle in the Ground, 19 year old Henry (Alex Wolff) is caring for his dying mother. His new neighbor Ana (Imogen Poots) is often noisy and disruptive. One night he sees a masked man force his way into her apartment. He encounters her one day at the...
If you read my festival coverage, you?ll know that I am a proponent for short films. I enjoy the chance to take in a program or two of shorts when I attend film festivals. Shorts are more than just practice for aspiring filmmakers. Shorts get to the point quickly and...