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 […]

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

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

In My Name is Joe, the problems of working-class Glasgow, Scotland, during the period of high unemployment under Margaret Thatcher’s era are highlighted. Although the film was highly acclaimed in Britain when released in 1998 and relegated to an art film theatre circuit in the United States in 1999, because the setting and dialog are unfamiliar

The Messenger – The Story of Joan of Arc In the fifth century, the Frankish kings siezed control of much of France, but had to defend the territory against attacks by Viking warriors. In 991 the French capitulated in the Treaty of St. Clair-sur-Epte, establishing the dukedom of Normande, and the Norsemen soon took over

If humans had been replaced by artificial intelligence copies to bring about a rational world, what would uncloned humans do? This is the premise for the sci-fi film The Matrix, directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski, though we are supposed to understand that it is the 21st century, and that the machines waged war on the

Lucie Aubrac During World War II the Germans occupied France and ruled through a puppet government. Some French collaborated with the Germans; others resisted. A dramatic episode of the French Resistance in 1943 is brought to the screen in the 1997 French film Lucie Aubrac, which opened in the Los Angeles area during fall 1999. The