Robert K Stephen (CSW)

RKS 2024 Film: “Evil Does Not Exist”: A Puzzling Name for This Film!

The most recent Ryusuke Hamaguchi film entitled “Evil Does Not Exist” is a puzzling one considering evil is omnipresent in the film. The best I can devise here is that there is an absence of evil in nature but interpose man with nature and evil is inescapable. Debate it if you wish but has RyusukeContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: “Evil Does Not Exist”: A Puzzling Name for This Film!”

RKS 2024 Wine: Caught in the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc Groove (or trap?)

Many wine drinkers hear “Sauvignon Blanc” and their mind races to New Zealand. Whether the Sauvignon Blanc fad has faded is not apparent but what is apparent New Zealand is enjoying the ride on its tail and why not! Of course, or maybe not of course, you are aware Bordeaux produces some Sauvignon Blanc ofContinue reading “RKS 2024 Wine: Caught in the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc Groove (or trap?)”

RKS Literature: The Cruel Mr. Creakle Looks for His Next Victim (Charles Dickens)

“Here I sit at the desk again, watching his eye, as he rules out a ciphering book, with a pocket handkerchief. I have plenty to do. I don’t watch his eye in idleness but because I am morbidly attracted to it, in a dread desire to know what he will do next, and whether itContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Cruel Mr. Creakle Looks for His Next Victim (Charles Dickens)”

RKS 2024 Film: HOTDOCS 2024: “Silent Trees”: A Minefield to Somewhat Normalcy

Sixteen-year-old Runa fled ISIS controlled Kurdistan with her parents and four younger brothers. Trapped in a forest between Belarus and Poland her mother is felled by hypothermia and later dies in a Polish hospital. The family had spent 18 days in a frozen forest attempting to enter Poland. The Polish government had previously retaliated againstContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: HOTDOCS 2024: “Silent Trees”: A Minefield to Somewhat Normalcy”

RKS 2024 Wine: A Ritzy Montreal Pinot Noir from Westmount from the Tête Carrée!

We try a Westmount Willamette Valley Pinot Noir from Oregon. Westmount is a ritzy suburb of Montreal perched along Mont Royal. The home of the wealthy English sometimes referred to as Tête Carrée by the plebeians down below. So seeing a Pinot Noir from Westmount Vineyard and having travelled through Westmount countless times when livingContinue reading “RKS 2024 Wine: A Ritzy Montreal Pinot Noir from Westmount from the Tête Carrée!”

RKS 2024 Film: Hot Docs 2024: “A Photographic Memory”

Should I simply refer to the American documentary “A Photographic Memory” as rich, eerie, extensive, thorough, melancholic, uplifting and intriguing? Or might I say it is going to be remembered as one of the best Hot Docs 2024 documentaries? Considering the enormous sums I am paid to review films, the mind-boggling swag bags that flowContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: Hot Docs 2024: “A Photographic Memory””

RKS 2024 Film: “Jeanne du Barry”: Grandiose, Pomp and Circumstance but Somewhat Vacuous: Poor Yawny Depp

It’s hard to pan a film with such lavish wardrobe in a Versailles setting. I have been to Versailles twice and it is certainly indicative of grandeur and wealth but with “Jeanne du Barry” populate it with rich period costumes of the era of Louis XV it is worth the price of admission to seeContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: “Jeanne du Barry”: Grandiose, Pomp and Circumstance but Somewhat Vacuous: Poor Yawny Depp”

RKS 2024 Film: HOT DOCS 2024: “Norwegian Democrazy”

“Norwegian Democrazy” delves into the limits and constraints placed on free speech and the stresses on Norwegian society by the influx of Islamic immigration. The Muslim population of Norway is 182,000 constituting 3.3% of its total population. 55% of the Norwegian Muslim population live in Oslo and Viken. The Islamic influx is not restricted toContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: HOT DOCS 2024: “Norwegian Democrazy””

RKS 2024 Film: “Sweetland”: Time to Recognize a New Canadian Film Classic: The Sea Giveth the Governments Taketh

“Sweetland” is based on Michael Crummey’s novel of the same name. The Fisheries Household Resettlement Programme administered by the Canadian federal government and Newfoundland provincial government offered somewhat meagre payments for inhabitants of remote outports to relocate to “economic centres of development”. Did economic theory destroy and mutilate the fabric of historic Newfoundland? To receiveContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: “Sweetland”: Time to Recognize a New Canadian Film Classic: The Sea Giveth the Governments Taketh”

RKS 2024 Wine: Does a Boggled Mind Benefit from a Bogle Family Vineyards Pinot Noir?

At the Hot Docs film festival winds down I have saved the most depressing films for last and as a film reviewer of documentary films when I say depressing I mean it. On my bitter end list is the story of a 16-year-old Kurdish refugee girl, whose mother has died frozen to death in someContinue reading “RKS 2024 Wine: Does a Boggled Mind Benefit from a Bogle Family Vineyards Pinot Noir?”