Film Columns

Seized', winner of Anthem’s Best Short Documentary award, explores a police practice called civil asset forfeiture. 'Of Dogs and Men', winner of Best Libertarian Documentary Feature tries to explain why 10,000 pet dogs are killed by police every year.

Before seeing 'Deep Web', like most people, I believed Silk Road was a criminal enterprise -- a gigantic drug network and online cartel run by a drug lord known as the "Dread Pirate Roberts." It turns out that this was a highly distorted picture.

Slavery has become more subtle and is not just something that happens far away in third world countries. 'The Return' takes us into the world of a Filipino house maid held captive for years by an upper class family in Orange County, California.

Between films focusing on dysfunctional futures, police excesses, brain damage, political oppression, climate fraud, cancer, and unjust imprisonment, Anthem Film Festival director Jo Ann Skousen worked in a few films that inspired giggles and guffaws. Thank you, Jo Ann.

We are reaching peak crazy. There are two possible outcomes. We get trampled or the rest of us wake up and start fighting the people who are trying to stifle free speech.

Do right-wingers have a sense of humor? You'd be less surprised to both laugh and survive at the Anthem Film Festival.

There seems to be a new meme in indie film: scary ladies. “Danger: Crazy Lady Ahead” award goes to a pair of films shown at the Dances With Films Festival.

I caught up with the creator of web series "Quirky Female Protagonist" at this year's LA Film Festival. She shared her secrets with me.

The new dramedy "Don’t Think Twice" begins as if it’s a documentary on how to do improv. Then the members of the fictional improv group, The Commune, violate all the rules in their improv dire results, in their personal lives.

'Creedmoria', a film by first-time writer/director Alicia Slimmer, made its SoCal premier at the Dances With Films Festival. It chronicles the efforts of sweet-sixteen Candy Cahill, played by Stef Dawson, to come of age in one of the most dysfunctional families in movie history. As I watched the film, I hoped, for Slimmer’s sake, that this movie wasn’t too autobiographical. It turns out that it was.