A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Reviews of films made in Canada and United States including all films made by Hollywood.
Courtenay Johnson, “Last Requests” (2017) A sombre character study of a prison worker on her last day in a program that supplies last-request meals to death…
Carlton Meyer, “The Incident at Benghazi” (31 July 2020) As short reports go, this one on the lynching death of US ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens…
Carlton Meyer, “The American Annexation of Okinawa” (Tales of the American Empire, 24 July 2020) In a little over ten minutes, this documentary presents a good…
John Curran, “Chappaquiddick” (2017) A thoughtful and well-acted film, as the metonym title suggests, this work revolves around the drowning tragedy of Mary Jo Kopechne on…
Carlton Meyer, “The False Tale of Killing Osama bin Laden” (Tales of the American Empire, 13 February 2020) This short documentary makes a succinct case for…
Carlton Meyer, “Protecting the American Opium Empire” (Tales of the American Empire, 9 July 2020) For an 11-minute video, this is perhaps a little too far-ranging…
Josh Bowman, “Eve” (2019) A character-driven sci-fi story with good acting and a strong visual look with a desert setting doesn’t need a fancy budget or…
Adam K Batchelor, “Satori [Awakening]” (2020) An original and ambitious idea of an Earth re-engineered by Artificial Intelligence to reverse environmental degradation, combined perhaps with genetic…
Christopher Todd, “End of Decay” (2017) A pulpy body-horror update on Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus” novel, this short film has the sketchy and…
Jamie Monahan, “Lucid” (2018) The film’s title refers to so-called lucid dreams in which the dreamer is aware that s/he is dreaming, that the action in…