A Review by Alvin G. Burstein, PhD From Ida Tarbell’s exposé of Standard Oil, to Upton Sinclair’s critical exploration of the plight of packing house workers, to Ralph Naders’ blistering attack on automakers, America has a rich tradition of what has become called “muckraking.” Some will see Andrea Arnold’s documentary debut, the 2021 movie Cow […]
A Review by Alvin G. Burstein, PhD This self-described Rom Com surprises with its wit, and its depth. The frothy wit with which it abounds is contrasted by flashes of tragic despair. German written and acted, with subtitles, directed by Maria Schrader, it more than merits its many awards. The female lead, Maria Egert, won […]
A Review by Alvin G. Burstein, PhD This very recent Netflix documentary’s popularity exploded during the first week of its release, drawing my attention to a genre that has not previously interested me: true crime accounts. The Tinder Swindler turned out to be interesting, and, to make a pun, even arresting, in unexpected ways. It […]
A Review by Alvin G. Burstein, PhD This 2007 film begins in pre-World War II Britain. It has two foci of action. One is Briony Tallis, who bookends the film, appearing first as a thirteen-year-old, precociously involved in writing a play, and again, three or four decades later, as an established writer. She is being […]
A Review by Alvin G. Burstein, PhD This is a film you should see. Don’t be put off by its eponymous title or by its starring Nicholas Cage, with his predilection for operatic excess and personal foibles. I am not going to say much about the movie’s content, because it is a film to experience […]
by Alvin G. Burstein Antedating contemporary concerns about extra-terrestrials, many cultures have some variant of fascination with sea-dwelling humanoids, and feature tales about interactions between them and earthlings. Often they focus on sexual allure and associated danger. Examples are the sirens that require Odysseus’ crew to bind him to a mast to keep him from […]
A Review by Alvin G. Burstein In Michael Ignatieff’s 1993 book, Blood and Belonging, he explores a phenomenon described by Freud in his 1921 essay, Group Psychology, i.e., the capacity for closely related peoples to hate one another. Ignatieff chose to examine that notion by interviewing individuals in several contemporary warring groups, including those in […]
A Review by Alvin G. Burstein When I moved to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville to direct the graduate program in clinical psychology, my wife, who had graduated from that program, was eager for me to meet William S. Verplanck. When she began her studies there, he was the department head; during his tenure, the […]
A Review by Alvin G. Burstein When I was a fourth grader, my favorite aunt came to stay with us, awaiting bed availability for her in a psychiatric unit. She was in the grip of an involutional paranoid psychosis and the change in her terrified me. A pearls and white gloves, sweet-talking southerner, she was […]
A Review by Alvin G. Burstein This movie, an indie, the second effort by Anthony Scott Burns, who co-wrote, directed and filmed it, won favorable attention at Canada’s 2020 Fantasia Film Festival, and a positive rating by the rating accumulator Rotten Tomatoes. Ever since my childhood encounters with the Gothic tales of Edgar Allen Poe […]
A Review by Alvin G. Burstein This subtitled French film, available on Amazon Prime,written and directed by Filippo Meneghetti, is a debut effort that packs a jarring punch. Its exploration of a passionate relationship between two women at an age some French would delicately call “certain” shatters any presumption of attenuated sexuality in the elderly, […]
A Review by Alvin G. Burstein A lifelong addict to Conan Doyle’s fictional accounts of Sherlock Holmes, I am generally intolerant of those adaptations that clash with my images of the sleuth and his trusted Dr. Watson. The bakers dozen or so of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce were marginally acceptable to me. Their adaptations […]
A Review by Alvin G. Burstein In a search for an end of the year movie to review, the spate of Christmas releases didn’t appeal to me. Citizen Kane popped into my mind because of its frequent citation as the all-time greatest movie by both the American Film Institute and its British counterpart. It was […]
J. R. ‘Bob’ Dobbs and the Church of the SubGenius A Review by Alvin G. Burstein This film will not be everyone’s cup of tea. It is not a drama or biopic. It is part documentary and part essay, posing a problem and raising troubling questions. It is an indie film funded by a Kickstarter […]
Stonehearst Asylum A Review by Alvin G. Burstein This reworking of a short story by Edgar Allan Poe was filmed in Bulgaria in 2013 and is now available on Amazon. Its opening scene is a clear echo of a lithograph that hung in Freud’s study, a reproduction of a famous painting by André Brouillet, A […]