Can a company do well by doing good? According to Seeding Change: The Power of Conscious Commerce, the simple answer is “Yes.” But the way there is a bit complicated. It involves dealing with your suppliers honestly. Respecting the environment, at every stage of the process. And then putting some of your profits to work […]
Author: Stephen Whitty
Overrun
Overrun is an action movie that gets one thing very right. It takes its filmmaking seriously. It doesn’t take itself seriously. Perhaps that’s because a lot of the people making it – behind and in front of the camera – are veteran stunt players. They still remember being kids at recess, and showing off their […]
We Had It Coming
We Had It Coming is a film full of lonely places. Wide stretches of empty Canadian highway. No-name motels with equally anonymous occupants. Places you pass through, without looking, without caring. People you don’t really see. We Had It Coming demands we look, though. Look into the eyes of women, especially – women pushed around […]
Camp Wedding
Having a wedding can be a scream. A tongue-in-cheek tribute to old slasher films, Camp Wedding revolves around Mia – which is only fitting, because she thinks the whole world should revolve around her. A bridezilla on a mission, she’s planned a special destination-wedding for her nuptials. The only problem is, the destination she’s picked […]
When Today Ends
Every day, more than 3000 high school students attempt suicide. When Today Ends is the story of three of them. The suicide crisis among young people is a mental-health epidemic, and one that many novels and movies – like television’s controversial 13 Reasons Why – have explored. Michael Leoni, who directed and wrote this film, […]
6:45
Screams like old times… The horror film 6:45 uses what had been a fresh story-telling gimmick when Groundhog Day did it, but lately has begun to go a little stale: The time loop. Think Source Code, The Final Girls, Edge of Tomorrow, or Happy Death Day. The template is easy: Oh no, someone’s trying to […]
Caged
Sometimes the scariest thing of all is nothing. Literally. No person to talk to. No books to read. No changes, no surprises — nothing. Because that’s what solitary confinement is. And that is why it drives people mad. It’s also the story behind Caged, a taut new film that’s part character study, part mystery, part […]
12 Mighty Orphans
Just because something sounds corny, doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Or isn’t good. 12 Mighty Orphans plays like a lot of other inspirational sports movies. There’s a dedicated coach. A team of underdogs, facing personal challenges and met with public scorn. A drunken old man, a couple of villains and, in the end, some kind […]
Parallel Love: The Story of a Band Called Luxury
For some fans, rock-and-roll replaces religion. For the members of Luxury, it was the other way around. A beloved cult favorite of the early-’90s, the original four musicians — Glenn Black, Chris Foley, and brothers Lee and Jamey Bozeman – fired up fans with driving beats and dreamy lyrics. Then came a car crash. A […]
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This Is Not a War Story
In the movies, war is exciting and chaotic and inspiring, full of adventure and heroism and way-cool weapons. Well, as Talia Lugacy’s film warns us right from the start, This Is Not a War Story. Instead, this is a story about what happens after the war, when veterans come home. Many of them are wounded. […]
Trust
It’s hard to gain. It’s easy to lose. It’s almost impossible to get back. “Trust.” That’s the title, and topic, of a twisty new marital drama featuring Brooke and Owen, an attractive, successful, having-it-all Manhattan couple. He’s a local TV anchor on the rise. She’s just opened her own art gallery and signed a hot […]
Steps
According to the Chinese proverb, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Sometimes, though, the most life-changing journeys begin with 12. The new film Steps, though, isn’t really about Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s a story about conquering addictions, of all kinds. To drugs and alcohol. To rage and violence. To impulsive decisions […]
The Penny Black
Look around the poker table, veteran gamblers like to warn. If you can’t spot the sucker – it’s you. There’s a lot to look at in the mostly intriguing con-man documentary and clearly someone’s being taken for a ride. But who is it? The mysterious Russian on the run who says he has millions of […]
Trust
It’s hard to gain. It’s easy to lose. It’s almost impossible to get back. Trust. That’s the title, and topic, of a twisty new marital drama featuring Brooke and Owen, an attractive, successful, having-it-all Manhattan couple. He’s a local TV anchor on the rise. She’s just opened her own art gallery, and signed a hot […]
Effigy: Poison and the City
Frau Gottfried is killing people with kindness. Literally. The pretty German lady is always there when someone – a spouse, a relative, a neighbor – takes ill. She typically devotes days, even weeks to tenderly nursing them, even moving into their homes to see after their meals. It’s terrible all her patients end up dying. […]
Too Late
Violet’s boss is horrible. He’s inhuman. He uses people. Eats them up, and then throws them away like garbage. He’s a monster, she tells her friends. “You mean, a metaphorical monster,” they say. Oh, if only. Show business is full of fiends, but the truth is, Bob Devore is a real one. A man-eating one. […]
Bad Cupid
Love is blind – which is why, sometimes, you need someone to step in and save you from walking into traffic. That’s the idea behind Bad Cupid, an amiably offbeat comedy about a slacker named Dave. A loser who can’t believe he lost, he’s still obsessed with the girl who dumped him a year ago. […]
P.E.N.S. – Poetic Energy Needed in Society
Academia is not the street. Forget whatever you learned in college about Tennyson or Longfellow. Modern urban poetry is fast, unfussy, forceful. You don’t give readings, you compete in “slams.” You don’t recite your verses, you “spit” them. And if the audience sits there silently – then you know you’ve lost. If you’re really connecting, […]
In Action
Sean Kenealy and Eric Silvera wanted to make an action movie in the worst way, and they did. No money for a cast of thousands? How about a cast of two. Low-budget? Closer to no budget, with the results of the team’s $20,000 Kickstarter campaign stretched to cover everything, from dubious on-screen talent to some […]
Touch
She is a woman without a country, married to a man with a past. And their troubled marriage – and her desperate, dangerous search for something more – will lead her down a risky path and into a deadly affair in Touch. Stripped to its essentials –erotic-thriller style and neo-noir fatalism — the movie sounds […]