War is hell, but it might be even worse if you’re unarmed. That’s exactly how Desmond Doss ran into battle, and on purpose. A Virginia country boy and devout Seventh Day Adventist, Doss rescued nearly a hundred men in one of a nasty war’s nastiest patches of scorched earth without firing a shot. It’s through […]
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The eighth annual Milwaukee Film Festival, which closed Oct. 6, proved to be bigger than ever. Over 15 days, nearly 77,000 attendees—an 8% increase over 2015—binged on 283 films from 51 countries presented on six screens. Among them were Critic Speak contributor Eric Beltmann and The Cinemaphile blogger Shelly Sampon. They talk here about the festival’s
Each screening at this year’s Milwaukee Film Festival began with a chuckle, as Alice Cooper reminded filmgoers that it’s actually pronounced “Mill-e-wah-que,” which is Algonquin for “the good land.” That beloved sound bite from “Wayne’s World” was included in the festival’s sponsor trailer, which ran before every movie. It was a discordant choice, since this year’s
2016 Milwaukee Film Festival: Eric Beltmann’s Top Five Read More »
One of the hottest titles at this year’s Milwaukee Film Festival is coming to West Bend, and the wait won’t be long. “Almost Sunrise,” the festival’s Centerpiece Film, concerns two Iraq veterans now battling depression, anxiety and guilt. Together they embark on a 2,700-mile mental health march from Milwaukee to Santa Monica. Along the way,
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Who knew Bud Selig likes fabulist movies spoken in Farsi? There he was, sitting directly behind me during a 2010 Milwaukee Film Festival screening of Shirin Neshat’s “Women Without Men,” a work of magic realism about four Tehran women. I’ve often had the good fortune of bumping into public figures at festivals—Harold Ramis, Susan Sarandon
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Topping my Netflix queue today are “The Forbidden Room,” an absurdist ode to early cinema from Canada, and “Winter Sleep,” a prizewinning drama from Turkey. If we scroll past the blockbusters, the relentless, rotating inventories of streaming services remind us that unique movies are always being made all over the world—and that filmgoers seldom have
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In the years since George Romero singlehandedly created the zombie genre with 1968’s “Night of the Living Dead,” he befriended and partnered with horror fiction magnate Stephen King for 1982’s “Creepshow,” a delightfully cheesy and colorful chiller anthology. And though King has gone on to write and even direct more movies, he never tried his hand
In his compulsively readable new book “Movie Freak: My Life Watching Movies,” film critic Owen Gleiberman recommends limiting one’s intake at film festivals to three movies per day. Four movies or more, Gleiberman contends, is just too many, and keeping one’s slate to three “guarantees you won’t fail to respond to the nuances in that
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While I cannot recommend the new comedy “Meet the Blacks” on artistic grounds, as it almost completely falls flat in the humor department, a part of me hopes that it does well at the box office. Why? Because if the film makes any commercial waves, it will more likely than not initiate an important discussion
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The end credits of “God’s Not Dead 2,” similar to those of its smash-hit predecessor, begin with a detailed text scroll of court cases, both federal and local, that supposedly informed its legal-themed narrative about a high school teacher on trial for invoking Jesus in the classroom. Blink and you’ll miss them, as they fly
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