B
Ad Astra
I entered the film Ad Astra (or “to the stars”) not really knowing what to expect other than it was another Brad Pitt vehicle. Almost coincident to his star turn…
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Traverse City Film Festival 2019: Top Films
After a leave of absence of reviews from last year’s Traverse City Film Festival (TCFF) even though I was there, I return with short reviews of the most impressive films…
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A-
Lean on Pete
I think back on the genre of “horse movies” I have watched (some repeatedly) and loved such as My Friend Flicka, The Black Stallion, National Velvet, Sea Biscuit, and War…
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B+
Disobedience
The death of one’s last remaining parent can be impactful beyond one’s expectations. For most of us, it signals the end of the generation from which we learned who we…
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A-
6 Balloons
In these times, hardly a family is untouched in some way by the opiate epidemic. As leaders of our church’s youth group, when my wife and I told the teens…
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B
Red Sparrow
Who does not like a good spy story? The Bourne and Bond series (philosophically discussed on this website here), Bridge of Spies, Munich, The Manchurian Candidate (1962 version of course),…
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B+
Loving Vincent
It seems like every few years there is an animated movie that knocks me off my theater seat. In my life a few of those that astounded me — due…
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A-
Darkest Hour
In America none of us ever feared that our country would be invaded and we would be subjugated to the will of a foreign country. Even in WWII we were…
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A-
Mudbound
As a child, like many others, I loved to play in the mud. We had a “sandpile” next to our barn that was about 25% sand with the rest dirt,…
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A-
First They Killed My Father
Most people living today have only a vague memory of the Vietnam War, or none at all. As a teenager growing up in a very conservative area my memories were…
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