RKS 2025 Film: “Dead to Rights”: Blockbuster Chinese War Epic

“Dead to Rights” is a blockbuster Chinese war epic depicting the 1937 capture of the Chinese city of Nanjing by the Japanese Imperial Army. An estimated 300,000 city residents were killed and given the barbarity of the Japanese forces “killed” may be a modest adjective. Men, woman and children were executed by various methods includingContinue reading “RKS 2025 Film: “Dead to Rights”: Blockbuster Chinese War Epic”

RKS 2025 Film: “Time Travel is Dangerous”: 99% Silly and Perhaps 1% Deserving Thought

Ruth (Ruth Syratt) and Megan (Megan Stevenson) are proprietors of a vintage shop “Cha Cha Cha” in the Muswell Hill suburb of London. Some of the older customers refer to it as a “charity shop” and given the rag tag merchandise they “source” from garbage bins that may be a more accurate description of theirContinue reading “RKS 2025 Film: “Time Travel is Dangerous”: 99% Silly and Perhaps 1% Deserving Thought”

RKS 2025 Film: “Meet, Greet & Bye”: Feel Happy, Feel Sad and Finish with a Smile

The feature Filipino movie “Meet, Greet & Bye” commences a North American theatrical release 14November2025. It has its happy lighthearted moments, nose dives into sadness and pulls up the throttle to the land of smiles. Baby Lopez Facunda (Maricel Soriano), a dynamo Filipina mother and grandmother reveling in her family life and feeding them facesContinue reading “RKS 2025 Film: “Meet, Greet & Bye”: Feel Happy, Feel Sad and Finish with a Smile”

RKS 2025 Film: “Diva Futura”: Artistic Pornography with Morals?

Riccardo Schicchi and Ilona “Cicciolina” Staller formed Italy’s first porno studio and talent agency Diva Futura in 1980’s Rome with a goal of changing Italy’s conservative sexual morality. Schicchi’s Girl Friday, Debora Attanasio office manager and publicist, wrote about Diva Futura, her book, the foundation for this Italian film. A fascinating recounting of Diva FuturaContinue reading “RKS 2025 Film: “Diva Futura”: Artistic Pornography with Morals?”

RKS 2025 Film: “Bau: Artist at War”

“Bau: Artist at War” is based on Joseph’s Bau’s autobiographical novel, “Dear God Have You Ever Gone Hungry”. Bau (Emile Hirsch) was deported from the Krakow Ghetto by the German occupiers of Poland and transported from the Krakow Ghetto with his family to the Plaszow Concentration Camp. Franz Gruen (Yan Tual) is a vicious concentrationContinue reading “RKS 2025 Film: “Bau: Artist at War””

RKS 2025 Film: “Dear Stranger”: Wreckage and Ruin: Emotional, Architectural and Physical

Kenji (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and Jane (Gwei Lun-Mei) live in a New York City borough with their son Kai (Everest Talde). Kenji and Jane are on the precipice of physical and mental collapse. Kenji is desperate to receive tenure as a professor of architecture specializing in ruins. Jane is a director of a puppet theatre andContinue reading “RKS 2025 Film: “Dear Stranger”: Wreckage and Ruin: Emotional, Architectural and Physical”

RKS 2025 Film: “Trains”: Dreamlike and Savage

“Trains”, a Polish film directed by Maciej J. Drygas, is more reflective about humanity than trains. Trains can move humanity in adventuresome and joyful spirits but in this film more towards the unspeakable horrors of war on soldiers and civilians alike. 46 film archives were utilized crafting a black and white film without dialogue onlyContinue reading “RKS 2025 Film: “Trains”: Dreamlike and Savage”

RKS 2025 Film: “Filip”: Revenge and Retribution Misogynist Style

The film begins with Polish Jew Filip (Eryk Kulm) beginning his performance in a Warsaw Ghetto cabaret with his fiancé Sara. The audience and performers all wear armbands with a Star of David. Germans enter the cabaret massacring the audience including Sara. Filip escapes and through a Polish manager/black marketeer, Staszeki, of a compulsory labourContinue reading “RKS 2025 Film: “Filip”: Revenge and Retribution Misogynist Style”

RKS 2025 Film: “Green Border”: Trials and Tribulations of Refugees and Migrants Crossing Belarusian Border into Poland

This Polish feature film opens with a Syrian refugee family flying from Turkey into Belarus where a taxi arranged by a family member living in Sweden will transport them to the Polish border where they will “illegally” cross into Poland the assumption being the trip from Poland to Sweden can be made without any difficultyContinue reading “RKS 2025 Film: “Green Border”: Trials and Tribulations of Refugees and Migrants Crossing Belarusian Border into Poland”

RKS 2025 Film: “Under the Volcano”: Metaphorical Streams of Lava!

Roma (Roman Lutskyi), his wife Nastia (Anastasiia Karpenko) and Roma’s children the phone obsessed Sofia (Sofia Berezovska) and the cartoon loving Fedir (Fedir Pugachov) are Ukrainians spending a vacation on one of the Canary Islands, Tenerife. Fun and good times and inevitably the departure back to Kiev. But the fun and games abruptly end withContinue reading “RKS 2025 Film: “Under the Volcano”: Metaphorical Streams of Lava!”