Sav Rodgers discovered Kevin Smith’s “Chasing Amy” at a crucial time in his life. Rodgers connected with Smith’s comedy about a straight comic book artist (Ben Affleck) who falls for a fellow artist (Joey Lauren Adams) who also happens to be a lesbian. Hijinks ensue, leading to a bittersweet ending not atypical of Smith’s work.

Rodgers watched the film dozens of times, if not more. However, as the fanboy came into adulthood, he began to see “Chasing Amy,” perhaps, as somewhat “problematic.” For one, the idea

Nearly four years ago, I watched one of the most incredible films I’ve ever seen at Sundance. Cedric Cheung-Lau took to the stage at a theater in central Salt Lake City to introduce “The Mountains Are a Dream That Call to Me,” which I described at the time as “hypnosis in motion.” I shook his hand after the screening, thanking him for this unique cinematic experience.

I named it my best film of 2020

If a filmmaker or publicist contacts me regarding my reviews, it’s usually to complain—with the unhappy missive-composers often forgetting that the job of a critic is to, well, critique and not to make friends or earn pats on the back.  One does not undertake this type of writing to be popular, or even liked.  (I could point to my school years as evidence of this, but never mind.)  If we’re lucky, a critic might see his or her name on publicity

Many people are familiar with the Kinsey Report on sexual behavior, which rocked the establishment in the early fifties, but far fewer know about 1976’s Hite Report, which effectively described the frequency and variability of female orgasm. The report’s author, feminist researcher Shere Hite, was alternately celebrated and vilified for her writing, with media outlets often outwardly hostile to her research. But she pressed on, with other reports on

At the start of the twentieth century, it was estimated that fewer than 1,000 bison were left on the Great Plains following two centuries of unchecked extermination. Today, thanks to conservation efforts, they number approximately 450,000—but still far, far below the tens of millions of animals that once roamed the continent.  

In “The American Buffalo"

In the last century, more than ninety percent of Black farmers lost their property, often in schemes that dispossessed them of decades or even centuries of ties to their land. Greed, as it often does, plays a part, especially when backed by a corporate machine intent on seizing property for development.

Just one such example of land grabbing is documented in the new film “Silver Dollar

Joan Baez I Am a Noise” is less a travelogue of Joan Baez’s six decades in music than it is an exploration of her personality, her hopes, her tragedies, her triumphs and her political advocacy on behalf of the cause of peace.  In addition to the music she made early on with Bob Dylan, the film tells of Baez’s difficulties with anxiety as well as her later-in-life wish to confront her parents about what she viewed as unacceptable