Honeyland, an award-winning documentary by Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov offers a look inside a world few of us will ever see. An impoverished indigenous Turkish woman lives in a hut in the Macedonian mountains with her severely disabled mother. They have no electricity, water or roads but she can’t move away. But Haditze Muratova is resilient and positive and makes the most of… View Post
I’m torn by “Quentin Tarantino’s Ninth Film”, the beautifully realised Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood. Set in LA in 1969 and crammed with references to every cultural thing that existed then – TV ads, celebrity, TV westerns, spaghetti westerns, pop music, grocery branding, karate, macho men, ad infinitum, Tarantino dares to reimagine one of the most shocking crimes of that… View Post
Actor Graham Greene is nothing short of an arts phenomenon. Having worked steadily in film, TV and spoken word since 1979 and in theatre longer, the Oscar nominated, Oneida-Canadian has played every ethnicity, in all kinds of genres and mediums, a familiar face around the world. In 2015, he was named a Member of the Order of Canada. Greene stars… View Post
Disney reimagines The Lion King using photo-realistic animation, a technology far beyond the original animated version while not quite using talking animals. It’s a powerful and often frightening experience for very young children telling the familiar story about a boy and his kingdom but as Disney movies usually indicate, life is unpredictable. Diverse animals live together ruled by the wise lion Mufasa… View Post
Nick Broomfield, a ballsy documentarian (Sarah Palin: You Betcha! Whitney: Can I Be Me, Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer) has a personal stake in his latest work Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love. His real-life role in the doc gives him insights into the main players we wouldn’t otherwise learn. He had an affair Marianne Ihlen in Hydra in… View Post
Lifelong friends Joe Talbot (grandson of Hollywood actor Lyle Talbot) and Jimmie Fails tell Fails’ amazing true story in their first feature film which is also a visionary love letter to their city. Talbot directors, Fails stars and they co-wrote a moving story that touches on friendship, gentrification, loss and the idea of home. Fails has been homeless most of… View Post