I have no real complaints about this drama of a single mom hard done by who is trying to live out her dreams through her 15-year-old daughter. So I won’t even try to give a reason for why this fine movie seemed to fall short for me.

I would swear that this woman had a chronic migraine with her constant caressing of her forehead with her fingers. No doubt due to the emotional burden that she carried and the heavy…

I confess that in my youth I used to garner some satisfaction from movies in which revenge served to tip the scales of justice toward those who were innocent victims of crime. There were plenty of filmmakers, particularly in America, who provided viewers like me with lots of material to satisfy our righteous indignation by delivering violent vengeance disguised as true, biblical justice.

Some where along the way my sentiments were altered and I began to develop an aversion toward…

I had a dream last night about this movie. I was ushered into a room with Osama bin Laden. I did not feel hatred for him . . . more a sense of wonder. This only served to reinforce how highly conflicted I am about the ongoing war against terrorism - a deep ambivalence which I could not separate from my interaction with this movie.

Was the assassination of bin Laden an act of US heroism, a final victory over…

The morning after watching Roma, I awoke to the melody and lyrics of one of my favourite pop songs of the 80’s ringing in the recesses of my mind - I Want to Know What Love Is, by Foreigner. Perfectly apropos to the movie I had just watched the night before. Roma could easily have been titled Cleo, after the maid of a middle class family living in the Colonia Roma neighbourhood of Mexico City during the early 1970’s. Or…