Year: 2016

“Embrace of the Serpent” (“El abrazo de la serpiente”) (2015). Cast: Nilbio Torres, Jan Bijvoet, Antonio Bolívar Salvador, Brionne Davis, Yauenkü Miguee, Luigi Sciamanna, Nicolás Concino. Director: Ciro Guerra. Screenplay: Ciro Guerra and Jacques Toulemonde. Source Material: The diaries of Theodor Koch-Grünberg and Richard Evan Schultes. Web site. Trailer. What happens when individuals from two very different worlds come into contact with one another? In some instances, such clashes of cultures can have devastating effects. But, in other cases, the interaction can lead to entirely new understandings of one another, especially for those whose eyes have been closed to revelatory insights and blinded by superficial and materialistic concerns. Such is the experience of two Western explorers who journey into the remote Amazonian rainforest in the stunningly beautiful new Colombian epic, “Embrace of the Serpent” (“El abrazo de la serpiente”). “Embrace of the Serpent” tells two separate but related stories linked by common threads. Based on the diaries of explorers Theodor Koch-Grünberg and Richard Evan Schultes, the film follows the exploits of two similar but fictional adventurers, Theo (Jan Bijvoet) and Evan (Brionne Davis), as they make their way into the jungle in search of the rare yakruna plant, a hallucinogenic ...

Join me and host Frankie Picasso for this month’s edition of Movies with Meaning on Frankiesense & More radio, Thursday March 31 at 1 pm ET. We’ll look at some enlightening new film releases. Tune in here for some lively movie chat! ...

Reviews of “Eye in the Sky,” “Everything Is Copy” and “Hello, My Name is Doris” are all available in the latest Movies with Meaning post on the Blog Page of The Good Radio Network, available by clicking here. Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street Media. Photo by Dan Greenburg, courtesy of HBO. Photo by Aaron Epstein, courtesy of Roadside Attractions ...

“Creative Control” (2015 production, 2016 release). Cast: Benjamin Dickinson, Nora Zehetner, Dan Gill, Alexia Rasmussen, Reggie Watts. Director: Benjamin Dickinson. Screenplay: Micah Bloomberg and Benjamin Dickinson. Web site. Trailer. It’s easy to distinguish reality from fantasy, right? Are you sure? But what happens when the lines start to get blurred? For some, making the distinction may prove more problematic than one might think, a conundrum explored in the quirky new independent comedy-drama, “Creative Control.” When a hip New York ad agency is hired to come up with a marketing campaign for a new form of computer-based eyewear with interactive capabilities, the organization puts its best man, David (Benjamin Dickinson), on the account. To learn about the product, David decides to try it out for himself. He soon discovers that these augmented reality glasses are truly groundbreaking: Not only do they provide enhanced perceptive capabilities of one’s environment, but they also make it possible to integrate computer-generated elements into one’s surroundings, creating a truly life-like representation of virtual reality. David quickly finds the technology’s capabilities quite compelling. Indeed, the eyewear’s appeal is so seductive that he begins losing his capacity for distinguishing what’s “real” and the virtual existence he’s created using ...

“Miracles from Heaven” (2016). Cast: Jennifer Garner, Kylie Rogers, Martin Henderson, Queen Latifah, Brighton Sharbino, Courtney Fansler, Eugenio Derbez, John Carroll Lynch, Kelly Collins Lintz, Brandon Spink, Rhoda Griffis, Erica Allen McGee, Wayne Péré, Bruce Altman, Hannah Alligood, Zach Sale, J.M. Longoria, Gregory Alan Williams, Suehyla El-Attar. Director: Patricia Riggen. Screenplay: Randy Brown. Book: Christy Beam, Miracles from Heaven. Web site. Trailer. When our lives are challenged, it’s easy for our faith to get tested. So it is for a kindly, spiritual young mother when her 10-year-old daughter becomes gravely ill. But there’s always hope, and sometimes help arrives in the most unusual and inexplicable ways, as long as we believe in the possibility, circumstances detailed in the new faith-based family drama inspired by true events, “Miracles from Heaven.” The Beam family of Burleson, Texas leads what appears to be a happy, contented, storybook life. Christy Beam (Jennifer Garner), a young mother lovingly devoted to her three daughters, Abbie (Brighton Sharbino), Anna (Kylie Rogers) and Adelynn (Courtney Fansler), tends to the needs of her kids and the family homestead, while her veterinarian husband, Kevin (Martin Henderson), works long and hard to meet the demands of his newly expanded farm-based practice ...

Reviews of “Miracles from Heaven,” “Embrace of the Serpent” and “Creative Control” are all available in the latest Movies with Meaning post on the Blog Page of The Good Radio Network, available by clicking here. Photo courtesy © CTMG, Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. Photo courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures ...