Robert K Stephen (CSW)

RKS OLD GEEZER: Am I an Old Geezer Yet?

A significant birthday looms in a few months one that is recognized as a mark of old age and a right to a state pension in Canada. But then again reach a certain age and each birthday is a significant event as you creak and moan to another, hopefully walking and not “gliding”. Who areContinue reading “RKS OLD GEEZER: Am I an Old Geezer Yet?”

RKS Travel: Thessaloniki’s Best Coffee?

Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city, is a rich city culturally and gastronomically. Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Italian and French architecture. The proliferation of coffeeshops is nothing short of stunning. As I look out my back and front window there is a coffee shop called “Coffee Island” and out back a Gregory’s. Then 20 steps away thereContinue reading “RKS Travel: Thessaloniki’s Best Coffee?”

RKS 2024 Wine in Greece: Nicolas Repanis Agiorgitiko from Nemea

Here in Greece as far as red wine goes in larger urban areas, you’ll find a great deal of Agiorgitiko in supermarket and corner market shelves. You have to discover a large liquor store where for example here at Thessaloniki at a Cash and Carry Store primarily supplying restaurants there must have been close toContinue reading “RKS 2024 Wine in Greece: Nicolas Repanis Agiorgitiko from Nemea”

RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Meat”: Twice Out of Control and Twice Dead

Takis (Aky Ilaskarazisis) raises sheep in a small Greek village. Takis has a longstanding feud with Kyriakou (Dimitris Xanthopoulos) over land ownership. A situation of two hot heads colliding in a violent verbal spar starting the film with Kyriakou without much community support just being released from three years in prison. Community standards run highContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Meat”: Twice Out of Control and Twice Dead”

RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “She Loved Blossoms More”

“She Loved Blossoms More” is a film difficult to categorise as to genre and the best I can suggest is “psychedelic horror”. Consider it a combination of “The Wizard of Oz”, the blue pill from “The Matrix”, “Back to the Future”, “Mad Max” and the LSD trip in New Orleans in “Easy Rider”. The plotContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “She Loved Blossoms More””

RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Killerwood”

“Killerwood” is yet another Greek film showcasing at The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival. It is the third festival film I have watched about a film making a film a seemingly favourite modern Greek film genre. On one level it is intriguing because it focuses on the production of a film including many of itsContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Killerwood””

RKS 2024 Film: The 65th International Thessaloniki Film Festival: “Hunt”

“Hunt” is as about as dark and despondent as imaginable. Shot in late autumn in sombre hues and occasional in and out focus camerawork it weighs the viewer down with depressive weight and there is nowhere to go but down. Yiannis (Giannis Belis) is a hunter of fowl and he smokes as if in aContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: The 65th International Thessaloniki Film Festival: “Hunt””

RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Annual Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “The Sock”

Kyros is a struggling filmmaker injured by a collapsing wall during some bizarre if not inane dance movement performance. His leg is fractured and two ligaments are torn. On crutches he has become temporarily disabled. Kyros proposes producing a film about his temporary disability and how that effects the relationships around him. It will alsoContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Annual Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “The Sock””

RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Annual Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Café 404”

“Café 404” is for you if like a group of decent people who discover a bag of loot and four dead bodies in a restaurant on the skids who then fight over the loot the dead bodies left behind and fight even more when 5 kilos of cocaine are also found. As one of theContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Annual Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Café 404””

RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Brando with a Glass Eye”

45 minutes of conventional film making is followed by diffuse and scattered imagery desperately clinging to a wandering plot. Call it boring at that point or be generous and artsy or experimental which loses much of the audience. An audience does not necessarily want to be spoon fed but may wander lost in imagery andContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Brando with a Glass Eye””