(First published on blogcritics.org) Filmmaker Reaves Washburn quoted Oscar Wilde: “Wilde said, ‘If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise, they’ll kill you.’ For us,” he continued, “that means give them good themes, peak their interest, ease people in and make it fun in every way.” Washburn, whose film Knocked Down won the short […]
(First published on blogcritics.org) Since l was old enough to comprehend such things, sometime in the 1960s, I’ve heard stories of how bad things can be in countries with socialized medicine. Until Saturday, July 13, 2013, at the Anthem Film Festival, I had no idea just how bad it could be. Logan Clements in his […]
(First published on blogcritics.org) Two sci-fi films with different twists on dystopian futures made the Anthem Film Festival a scary place. The Pilgrim, winner of the festival’s Audience Choice Award, by filmmaker Sean Buttimer, creates a global-warming-freaks-gone-wild world dominated by EPA bureaucrats. Silver Circle, by Pasha Roberts, takes us into a world where individual rights are crushed by an out-of-control […]
(First published on blogcritics.org) This is my second year at the Anthem Film Festival; when I registered I received the typical conference bag of goodies. To my delight, this bag include a DVD of The Conversation, the film that stood out most in my mind from year one. The Conversation, by Korchula Productions, does what most people might […]
(First published on blogcritics.org) There no shortage of either documentaries or polemics at the Anthem Film Festival, and they serve their role to advance the cause of Libertarian thought. But, and I heard this message last year and even more this year, before you can have an impact on the political system, you must change […]
(First published on blogcritics.org) Two approaches to serving up the truth were offered on Thursday, July 11, at the Anthem Film Festival: the gutsy, gritty, in-your-face truth of main stream media vitriol in Hating Breitbart, and the complex, subtle and intellectual economic truth of I, Pencil. Hating Breitbart Filmmaker Andrew Marcus began filming Andrew Breitbart’s life two days […]
(First published on blogcritics.org) You don’t have to do anything wrong to be destroyed by litigation. That is the message of The Last Week, a documentary which screened the first day of the Anthem Film Festival, in Las Vegas. It chronicles the last week of Blitz USA, a company that manufactured gas cans and provided jobs […]
This article originally appeared on blogcritics.org I started reading works by Ayn Rand in high school 50 years ago, and I’ve never been able to shake entirely free of her ideas. Now I go to the desert to contemplate those ideas. OK, it’s not quite as mystical as it sounds, because that part of the […]
(First published on blogcritics.org) This year’s LA Film Fest, sponsored by Film Independent, continued to be a remarkable cultural achievement. But within its 10-day run there were highs and lows. Family Day, coinciding with the premier of My Little Pony: Equestria Girls was a great event for kids and parents. I’ve attended a lot of film festivals and this […]
(First published on blogcritics.org) Europa Report is “hard” sci-fi. That means that its plot cannot be separated from the science involved. This distinguishes it from, for instance, the original Star Wars, which I love, because the plot of Star Wars could be easily moved to a pirate ship, the old west or WWII. Does that mean Europa Report is nerdy or […]
(First published on blogcritics.org) As this film got underway, I found myself thinking, “I’m not going to enjoy this. Well, that scene was pretty good, but I’m going to write a bad review.” The protagonist was a jerk. OK, he was a charming jerk, as many of them are. He also reminded me of a […]