AT ETERNITY’S GATE LOCATES VINCENT VAN GOGHIn the 19th century, up-and-coming artists headed for Paris, banding together to provide subsistence similar to what La Bohème portrays. Vincent Willem Van Gogh (played by Willem Dafoe), not recognized as a great artist by his contemporaries, cannot not abide how the group operates. Neither can his best friend Paul […]

BARRY IS NOT ABOUT HAPPINESS IN NEW YORK CITY After time in Honolulu, Jakarta, and Los Angeles, Barry Obama (magnificently played by Devon Terrell) hops a plane to the Big Apple on a day near his 20th birthday to go to Columbia College so he can advance intellectual pursuits. Director Vikram Gandhi seeks to explain how

NERUDA IS POETRY WITHIN POETRY In 1945, Chile’s famous poet Pablo Neruda (played by Luis Gnecco) was elected Senator, choosing to run as a member of the Communist Party, which he joined after the election. The following year, Gabriel González Videla asked Neruda to be his campaign manager. But when the Cold War and McCarthyism sweeps

BOOZE IT UP BEFORE SEEING WHISKY TANGO FOXTROT The pace of Whisky Tango Foxtrot is so fast that instead of an exposé of the perils of a female war correspondent, filmviewers witness how Kim Baker (played by Tina Fey) takes a break in a loud night club, is repeatedly seduced, loses her boyfriend, and in effect is more

JACKIE SHARES THE TRAUMA OF JFK’S DEATH In 1963, an American president who had brought hope for a new beginning—a Camelot—was shot dead alongside his wife, Jackie (played by Natalie Portman). She had to endure the blood spatter and make painful decisions following his death. Directed by Pablo Larraín, the film Jackie demonstrates much more than most filmviewers

LION ROARS ABOUT MISSING CHILDREN Every year, according to a title at the end of Lion, some 80,000 children go astray from their homes in India—and more worldwide. One such child, five-year-old Saroo (played by Sonny Pawar), goes to a train station with his brother, but then his brother Guddu (Abhishek Bharate) goes off to work, leaving

MOANA INSULTS POLYNESIANS Four directors had a script for Moana to accompany an animated story of how Polynesians moved from one part of the Pacific to their current home in Hawai‛i. Instead of flying to Honolulu to learn how the native population acts and talks, they Americanized the characters. The result was that the Demi-God Māui is

LOVING WINS OVER THE SUPREME COURT Richard Loving (played by Joel Edgerton) marry Mildred (Ruth Negga) in 1958 by traveling from Caroline County, Virginia, to see a judge in Washington, DC. They thus know that they are violating Virginia’s antimiscegenation law but seem naïve about the consequences of returning home to inevitable arrest, as he

PRICELESS ENDS WITH A DOT COM Slavery continues today in a different from—the sale of young women into prostitution. But where can one find and expose the practice that goes on in the cities of the world? James Stevens (played by Joel Smallbone) does so in Priceless by accident. His wife has died, but he

THE BIRTH OF A NATION CELEBRATES FREEDOM FOR SLAVES—FOR A TIME A biopic of Nat Turner (played by director Ned Parker), The Birth of a Nation sets the framework for the famous Turner Rebellion of slaves in Southhampton County, Virginia (though filming is in Savannah, Georgia), who killed 60 Whites in two days before being