Author Archive
Film Review – Hail Satan?
Hail Satan? is an amusing documentary about The Satanic Temple that uses that title as a way to challenge conservative religious groups attempting to inject Christianity into public life. Upfront it should be noted The Satanic Temple does not actually believe in Satan as a…
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Film Review – The Brink
The Brink lacks clear purpose in its observations of Steven Bannon, Donald Trump‘s onetime adviser and now a nationalist spokesman. Bannon is a controversial figure, to say the least, with those who admire him thinking he is aiding the United States and promoting nationalist ideas…
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Film Review – Screwball
Screwball takes one of the big baseball steroids scandals and makes it so someone like me who knows almost nothing about baseball can understand clearly the people involved in the scandal as well as a lot of their motivation. While it doesn’t reach new levels…
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Film Review – Birds of Passage
Birds of Passage tells a familiar tale of the corruptive influence of crime but does it well, with methodical storytelling through time and culture that doesn’t break any new ground but is easy to absorb. The moral of the story is literally told to you…
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Film Review – Puzzle
Puzzle is a deep, emotional character study that takes us on a great journey with a fuzzy ending that doesn’t diminish how we got there. Agnes (Kelly Macdonald) is a long-time housewife in a blue collar family whose life is pretty well defined. She calmly puts up…
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Film Review – The Gospel According to André
The Gospel According to André preaches to the choir and avoids giving any real insights. André Leon Talley was the fashion editor-at-large of Vogue magazine for several years, and he loved his grandmother a lot, which is really all I know about the man after…
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SXSW Film Review – On Her Shoulders
On Her Shoulders has an important figure and issue to discuss but fails completely to get that across. Nadia Murad is a twenty-three year old Yazidi from Iraq whose village was taken over by ISIS, resulting in most of the men being killed including those…
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Film Review – The Final Year
A look at the Obama foreign policy group’s final year where we are given glimpses of what the stress and details of their work entails, The Final Year doesn’t truly get into the nitty-gritty ideas or let us know the subjects in detail. The top…
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