Sometimes the most complicated endeavors start from such simple intentions. In 1973, French director Claude Lanzmann was hired by the Israeli government to make a film about the Jewish people, their past, their culture, and their history. Lanzmann had already made a documentary about the country itself, Israel Why, so he had impressed his financial backers well enough to trust him with another project, a two hour film that was supposed to take 18 months to complete. Instead, the result was 10 hours long, edited for five years from over 300 hours of footage shot for nearly seven years in six languages. But the result was Shoah, the documentary masterpiece that is one of the most exhaustive records of the history of the Holocaust.
Zack Little has landed the dream role. For 88 years, a small town in the foothills of Witchita, Oklahoma has been home to a yearly Easter pageant, the longest running Passion play in American history set against the bizarre backdrop of a detailed replication of the Holy Land smack dab in America’s Heartland. Drawing a local cast of hundreds, and the technical support of hundreds more, the spectacle of Witchita’s yearly tribute to the death and rebirth of Jesus Christ is a production on par with many Hollywood blockbusters. Now, Little is the star of this multi-generational effort, playing the role of a lifetime as Jesus Christ, but Zack has a secret that may call his capacity to play the King of Kings into question amongst the highly religious participants of the production.
What does it mean to be Canadian? Aside from the geographically obvious, the question doesn’t evoke an immediate and clear answer that can be articulated. It’s like when Morpheus asks Neo “What is real?” in The Matrix. This question also apparently haunted sitcom writer Rob Cohen, as he embarked on a coast-to-coast quest to define his home country.
The news has been filled with stories about the Islamic State, the group of Sunni extremists who control territory in Iraq and Syria, and are threatening to expand into other areas of the Middle East. The ferocity and the theocracy of ISIL has brought attention back to the conflict in the region thanks to their repeated acts of barbarism, and there’s concern that further military adventures in Iraq and neighboring countries might be necessary to stop them. Here’s the thing, the War on Terror never really took a break. The troops came home yes, but in 21st century warfare, the troops need not necessarily be in the theater of war to do damage, and yes, even kill.
With summertime approaching, once again Hollywood will be happily engaging us in our desire for death and destruction that ranks an 11 out of 10 on the apocalypse meter. Indeed, our appetite for all things end of the world seems to know no bounds or ages whether its superhero blockbusters, the weekly trials of the survivors of The Walking Dead, or even books aimed at young people like The Hunger Games and Divergent series. Maybe it has something to do with the fantasy though, maybe it’s fun to live vicariously in a broken world for a couple of hours through the magic of the screen, or the written word. After all, you can’t live in a post-apocalyptic world in real-life, can you?
“I don’t care what the critics say,” is a refrain you hear often when it comes to popular media be it movies, TV series, musicians, and yes, even books. When if comes to the literary world, no one gets more grief than those who write or enjoy the works of the romance genre. In the snooty world of books, even the literati need someone to look down their noses at, and sadly, romance is the bottom of the food chain. The documentary Love Between the Covers aims to shake those assumptions though. Probably every reader in their time has made a joke at the expense of the romance genre, but Laurie Khan wanted to look at those kinds of books in a new way. What if we celebrated them?
How do make a movie about an artist whose craft traverses cartooning, graphic design, puppetry, comic books, model-building, and interior design? Here’s a better question, how do you make a film about this person and condense it down into 42 minutes? Seth’s Dominion is not an exhaustive documentary about the work of Canadian cartoonist Seth, but it’s almost exhausting as you bounce around the various thoughts, works, and biographical details from Seth’s life as covered by director Luc Chamberland. Seth’s Dominion is a 42 minute whirlwind that really neither asks nor answers anything of its subject matter, but it may be best viewed as kind of film sketchbook, a rare look inside the thought process of an artistic renaissance man.
The Blacklist returns with Liz pushing to find the Fulcrum while Red fights for his life after being shot by those that don't want its secrets revealed.
It's not exactly who killed Laura Palmer, or what happened to Mulder's sister, but the question of what happened to Melinda May that earned her the reputation of being a one woman army is one of the unknown mysteries of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Although we know the broad strokes of how Agent May became known as "The Cavalry," any threat of the episode named after her becoming somewhat anticlimactic was washed away thanks to a solid script that plausibly tied together flashback action and the story in the present day. It also allowed Ming-Na Wen to put on an acting clinic as we watch May transform from a talented agent and wife eager to start a family, to the steely face of determination and dependability.
