Posts in 2017
SHORT FILM REVIEW: The Prince

n concisely thematic way, the award-winning short film The Prince, written and directed by Kyra Zagorsky, is a moving artistic interpretation of one of those such moments.  It indeed has a thought-provoking story to tell, and the result creates a resonating effect in short order, the chief goal of a good short film.  The Prince’s key to accomplishing its depth is the twin layers it uses to portray and describe its moment.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Journey's End

Journey’s End recounts the British side of a climactic four-day span from March 18-21, 1918 in the stalemate “No Man’s Land” trenches of Aisne in northern France in the lead-up to Operation Michael.  Every month, each British company is required to serve six days on the front line where casualties are gravely high. Gambling with death sentences, both trooper and officer alike pray that their six days are not the ones where an offensive is being amassed or defended.  

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MOVIE REVIEW: Flower

Though measured as a small independent film, Flower is an undoubted showcase platform for the soaring talent of Zooey Deutch.  Clad in her plain tank-tops and empowering a character with all kinds of obscene confidence, not even the worst behaviors on display can take away the magnetism of her frank and jarring performance.  For most of the film, she shines repulsiveness with unmatched charisma.

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MOVIE REVIEW: The Death of Stalin

Hot damn, you know your satire is magma-level hot when you offend the powers-that-be of a country enough to ban your film from playing on their soil.  Labeled as “extremist” and a “provocation” enough to spark tabloid headlines like “the film Hitler could have made,” Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin wears a giant badge of pride next to a tiny medallion of shame on its cinematic uniform on being banned in four nations: Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Colors of the Wind

The melodramatic preposterousness of Colors of the Wind is two-fold.  The first layer is good old-fashioned stage magic, everything from card tricks to disappearing acts.  The second comes from the notion of doppelgangers, the fanciful term for doubles, ghostly counterparts, and alter egos that have been a storytelling trope before in film.  Both elements create spirited and soapy intrigue in the film when combined with the romantic destiny of star-crossed lovers.

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SHORT FILM REVIEW: The Photographer

Underneath the on-screen actions in director Mark Sobol’s dynamic short film The Photographer, the motif of voyeurism is dissected from a presented theory.  A male narrator orates an internal monologue opening on the notion “a subject is so much more beautiful when it doesn’t know its being watched.”  Assigning beauty to a moment that is not the observer’s to share in begs a few life lessons.

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COLUMN: 17 hidden gem films from 2017

With each year of PR and press access, I’ve been diving deeper to experience more and more of what this art form and entertainment source has to offer.   For the second year in a row and on the heels of the Oscars putting a bow on all things 2017, I wanted to share a list of personal recommendations of hidden gems from last year.  Even these 17 are but drops in a larger bucket.  There so many little gems that I have yet to see.

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OSCAR PREDICTIONS 2018: The race for Best Picture

Throughout the awards season, I’ve been tallying the minor and lead-up award winners in all of the Oscar categories on the 2018 Awards Tracker as a big source of my prognostication data. In this seventh post, we look at the race for Best Picture.  As I say every year, stick with me and I will win you your Oscar pool! 

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OSCAR PREDICTIONS 2018: The male acting awards

Throughout the awards season, I’ve been tallying the minor and lead-up award winners in all of the Oscar categories on the 2018 Awards Tracker as a big source of my prognostication data. In this sixth post, we look at the races for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.  As I say every year, stick with me and I will win you your Oscar pool! 

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OSCAR PREDICTIONS 2018: The female acting awards

Throughout the awards season, I’ve been tallying the minor and lead-up award winners in all of the Oscar categories on the 2018 Awards Tracker as a big source of my prognostication data. In this fifth post, we look at the races for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress.  As I say every year, stick with me and I will win you your Oscar pool!

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OSCAR PREDICTIONS 2018: The visual and artistic categories

Throughout the awards season, I’ve been tallying the minor and lead-up award winners in all of the Oscar categories on the 2018 Awards Tracker as a big source of my prognostication data. In this third post, we look at the visual and artistic categories that include cinematography, production design, editing, visual effects, costume design, and makeup and hair-styling.

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OSCAR PREDICTIONS 2018: The minor film categories

Throughout the awards season, I’ve been tallying the minor and lead-up award winners in all of the Oscar categories on the 2018 Awards Tracker as a big source of my prognostication data. In this second post, we look at the minor film categories of foreign film, documentaries, animated films, and short films.

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