Monday , March 18 2024

Editor Pick: Film

Movie Review: ‘Can’t Stand Losing You: Surviving The Police’

Why did The Police stop playing together in 1983? Why did they come together again and go on a world tour from 2007-2008? Andy Summers' memoir 'One Train Later' the basis of the documentary film 'Can't Stand Losing You: Surviving The Police' gives an inside look revealing never before seen photographs and footage of the band at its classic moments. And it reveals clues as to why the band dissolved at the apex of their celebrity and power and came back together to go on phenomenal mind-bending tours.

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SXSW: Movie Review – Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy Come Back to ‘The Breakfast Club’

SXSW hosted the premier of the restored classic, The Breakfast Club, written and directed by John Hughes. But the event wasn't so much a premier as it was a celebration of a movie that has touched a generation or two. With its upcoming special theatrical showings and release to Blu-ray and video, it is sure to touch a few more. When the doors opened, we were given Breakfast Club t-shirts and treated to a breakfast of donuts, coffee and mimosas. Thank you, Universal Studios.

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3rd Annual First Time Fest Review: ‘I Believe in Unicorns’

The fantastic and the real are parallel worlds. Fantasy can help us slide over rough patches or painful times in various stages of our lives. For 16-year-old Davinia, the two realms have coexisted peacefully. The magical realm helps her overcome the hardships she faces taking care of her debilitated mom who is in a wheelchair. It is when Davinia decides to make decisions about her life after her 16th birthday that Sterling enters her life. Can he be the prince/unicorn who has inhabited her fanciful dreams? Or will she make him into a dragon? She, after all, holds the wand of magic, but she is taking a risk and may lose everything she finds comforting.

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2015 Athena Film Festival Review: ‘Difret’

Based on true events, Hirut Assefa, a 14-year-old Ethiopian school girl was the victim of telefa, a marriage abduction. Usually, when this happens, the girls are so demoralized that they do not resist, nor can they resist because their husband-to-be has the help of his friends to make the successful kidnapping. Hirut's story is different; what happens as a result of her kidnapping is an enthralling and eye-opening lesson in how one girl can take a stand for many, and in her stand, others join in to begin a movement to overthrow a system that existed for centuries.

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2015 Athena Film Festival Review: ‘Obvious Child’

Donna Stern is a stand-up comedienne whose comedy act has gone over the edge when she levels her shot-gun humor at her boyfriend who sits at the bar. After he breaks up with her, she tries to recoup but unbeknownst to her, she sets out on a collision course with deniability. If she wakes up in time to save herself, she will be able to use her humorous experiences in her act like she always does. If she doesn't, she and reality will collide and just maybe she'll have to step into adulthood.

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Athena Film Festival 2015: Review of ‘Vessel’

Every ten minutes a woman dies from not having access to a safe abortion-Upworthy. Dutch physician Rebecca Gomperts treated women who had gravely injured themselves trying to induce a miscarriage in countries with restrictive abortion laws. The misery, the suffering, the death was so disheartening when just beyond their grasp, these women could have been in safety with non surgical medical abortions if they had only been given access. How Dr. Gomperts finds a solution to this global issue that is also threatening to become an issue in the US is the subject of the incredible documentary 'Vessel.'

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3rd Annual First Time Fest Review: Olympia Dukakis Narrates ‘Beneath the Olive Tree’

Olympia Dukakis has stated that the Greek Civil War was one of the worst civil wars in modern Europe. "Tens of thousands of innocent people were accused of being enemies of the state and found guilty of crimes they never committed." They were thrown into concentration camps and brutalized. Why have you not heard of this? Events have been politicized and kept hidden. Until now.

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24th New York Jewish Film Festival Review: ‘Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem’

Vivan Amsalem will obtain a divorce. Elisha Amsalem will not allow her to divorce him. If this were America, there would be no problem. It is not. It is Israel in a Mizrahi Orthodox enclave where there is no separation between church and state. Orthodox rabbis are judges and they help to determine whether a Gett (divorce), can be decreed. But even their power is limited if a husband does not want to grant his wife a Gett.

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