Summer of Sam is a film full of nostalgia, especially for director Spike Lee, who in 1977 decided to become a filmmaker. Centered at a community in Queens where Italian working class men hang out near the Long Island Sound, the premise of the film is that the soaring temperatures of summer 1977 became so unbearable […]

A Stranger in the Kingdom is a thriller in the Perry Mason genre but based on a true story. In 1957, as the film unfolds, Walter Andrews (played by Ernie Hudson), a Protestant minister, is recruited to the pulpit by a congregation in Irasberg, Vermont, located in Kingdom County. The townspeople doubtless expected that he would

When Stigmata begins, a priest in São Paulo, Father Almeida, dies. A statue of the Virgin Mary cries human blood. Father Andrew Kiernan (played by Gabriel Byrne), having been assigned by the Vatican to investigate a reported appearance of the Virgin Mary in an oxidized rock, takes an unscheduled trip to São Paulo. A rosary of Father

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, the first of three prequels to the “Star Wars” series is not a film for mature adults; it is for children who read comic books and be counted upon to attend the film multiple times. The tagline of the film is “Every generation has a legend. Every

Near Puget Sound there are several islands with fishing villages and cedar forests. To several of these islands many Japanese fishermen were recruited in the nineteenth century, but by law they could not own property in Washington. In the summer, when fish were not in season, many Japanese were hired to work strawberry fields. In Snow

Before her death in 1879 from tuberculosis of the bone, reputedly the most excruciatingly painful disease of all, Marie Bernarde Soubirous claims to have seen the Virgin Mary. However, she did not articulate anything about the pain from which she must have been suffering. Most believers say that God intervened and replaced the sense of

French filmmakers have long excelled at making pictures about sex because they recognize the fundamental power struggle between men and women who lust for the ultimate. Romance, directed and written by Catherine Breillat, more than lives up to this reputation, far outdoing hard core pornography in integrating myriad sex acts with a story of Marie (played

The tagline of Ride with the Devil summarizes much about the film: “In a no-man’s land between North and South, you didn’t fight for the Blue or the Gray . . . you fought for your friends and your family.” Directed by Ang Lee, Ride with the Devil is based on the novel Woe to Live On by Daniel Woodrell, whose

Why are the lives of gays and Lesbians so turbulent at times? Most observers would not even care to pose the question, whether gay or straight. Writer/director P.J. Castellaneta dares to ask and provides his advice in the title Relax . . . It’s Just Sex even before the film begins. As if to invite straights to

In The Opposite of Sex, DeeDee Truitt (played by Christina Ricci) narrates a film about love triangles involving homosexuals, bisexuals, and heterosexuals. DeeDee is sixteen years old, unhappy living with her stepmother, so she travels from her home in Tennessee to Indiana, showing up on the doorstep of her brother Bill (played by Martin Donovan), an