Dear Cinephiles, V: “People should not be afraid of their government. Government should be afraid of their people.” "V for Vendetta" (2006) is a stimulating and eerie watch given the world today. This swashbuckling dystopian thriller takes place in 2020. A virus...

Dear Cinephiles, “The greatest moments of progress are followed by the most intense periods of retrenchment. That’s what happened after the civil war. Reconstruction was a high point for voting rights, and it was followed by nearly a hundred years of Jim Crow,”...

Dear Cinephiles, Jons: “Why do you paint such nonsense?” Church painter: “To remind people they’re going to die.” Jons: “It’s not going to cheer them up.” Church painter: “Why try to cheer them up? Why not scare them a bit?” I had been hesitant to recommend “The...

Dear Cinephiles, “Dear, our present comfortable state is at the most precarious sort. We don’t live, we visit.” Those words are spoken by Lady Susan in the wickedly good “Love and Friendship” (2016). It is based on a posthumously published novella by my unofficial...

Dear Cinephiles, “To Protect The Sheep You Gotta Catch The Wolf, And It Takes A Wolf To Catch A Wolf.” That motto used by corrupt policeman Alonzo Harris summarizes his situation in the ferocious crime thriller “Training Day” (2001) which - seen under the new...

Dear Cinephiles, “It’s been insane since the beginning. Actually, it’s a kid’s game. You took off of your word problems with leaking taps, and tanks that fill up and empty, and you planned a murder from it. In real life this kind of thing does not exist. Taps that you...

Dear SBIFF Fam, Everything is not what it seems in this week’s Family Film Fun, “Coraline.” Follow Coraline into her alternate world that lies just beyond a secret door in her new home. This world is not the dream come true it appears to be, and Coraline must use all...

Dear Cinephiles, “It was never about money for us it was about us against the system. That system that kills the human spirit. We stand for something to those dead souls inching along the freeways in their metal coffins. We show them that the human spirit is still...

Dear Cinephiles, “Yes, I use foundation. I live with a man. I’m just an old queer. That’s right! But I know who I am now. It’s taken me 20 years to come to this, Laurent.” Those lines are spoken by Renato – the father of Laurent – in the outrageous and warmhearted “La...