Arts + Life

Beyond just middle-aged dating.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

Films reviewed: Broken Flowers, Grizzly Man

By hosts John DeSando and Clay Lowe

"It's Movie Time" has won 8 national awards including Silver Microphone and Communicator national honors.

Drs. Lowe and DeSando were moderator and panelist respectively on TV 25's "World Film Classics." Both have been professors, Lowe at The Ohio State University and DeSando at Franklin University in Columbus, Ohio.

The biggest scream of them all.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

A low-key picaresque

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

Barely dramatic, thematic but enigmatic, that's Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers. His Stranger than Paradise was exactly that, a Cleveland road trip to existential uncertainty. In Flowers, Bill Murray as Don Johnston is also on a trip, but more certain of his goal than anyone in Stranger, for he seeks out his alleged son by visiting former lovers, one of whom anonymously wrote that she had borne him a child 19 years ago.

Click on MP3 above and hear the 5 minute "It's Movie Time" radio show anytime "on demand."

By hosts John DeSando and Clay Lowe

"It's Movie Time" has won 8 national awards including Silver Microphone and Communicator national honors.

Drs. Lowe and DeSando had been moderator and panelist respectively on TV 25's "World Film Classics" for several years. Both have been university professors, Lowe at The Ohio State University and DeSando at Franklin University in Columbus, Ohio.

Films reviewed: Murderball and Dukes of Hazzard

By Hosts John DeSando and Clay Lowe

"It's Movie Time" has won 8 national awards including Silver Microphone and Communicator national honors.

Drs. Lowe and DeSando had been moderator and panelist respectively on TV 25's "World Film Classics" for several years. Both have been university professors, Lowe at The Ohio State University and DeSando at Franklin University in Columbus, Ohio.

A life not worth living.

By John DeSando, WCBE's

I doubt if on the day in 1994 when Nirvana front man, Kurt Cobain, ended his life with a shotgun to the head, anyone saw his soul rise toward heaven, as Gus Van Sant depicts in Last Days, his recent foray into the interpretation of cultural phenomena that he also featured in Elephant.

A witless romp.

By John DeSando, WCBE's

The Dukes of Hazzard is a witless romp in a Dodge Charger, General Lee, with two adolescent men outwitting an inept but good ol? boy sheriff and his boss, Boss Hogg, played by a miscast Burt Reynolds.

Another complicated hero for Herzog.

(To view the trailer for this film, please click here.)

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

Timothy Treadwell was not a well man when he spent 13 years among the brown Grizzlies in Alaska until his time ran out one day as dinner for one of them. For me "not well" means he didn't quite understand that no matter how much he "loved" the bears, they couldn't always return the favor.

Everyone should see it.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

I doubt anyone seeing the documentary Murderball will ever again offer assistance to a paraplegic, much less these quadraplegic Rugby players. They compete in Paralympics like special forces itching for a fight, want no sympathy, need no help, and are better human beings than they might have been without their disabilities. As one player puts it, "We're not going for a hug - we're going for a fucking gold medal."

Cool and Airy

By John DeSando, WCBE's

What does a filmmaker do to enrich a clich?d story about a beautiful middle-aged woman who has to turn to internet dating to find a man? Well, in Must Love Dogs, Gary David Goldberg simply writes some witty lines about contemporary sexual politics and directs an able cast headed by John Cusack and Diane Lane as the aging sweetheart wannabees.

Films reviewed: Hustle & Flow, Bad News Bears

By hosts John DeSando and Clay Lowe

"It's Movie Time" has won 8 national awards including Silver Microphone and Communicator national honors.

Drs. Lowe and DeSando had been moderator and panelist respectively on TV 25's "World Film Classics" for several years. Both have been professors, Lowe at The Ohio State University and DeSando at Franklin University in Columbus, Ohio.

Films reviewed: March of the Penguins and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

By hosts John DeSando and Clay Lowe

"It's Movie Time" has won 8 national awards including Silver Microphone and Communicator national honors.

Drs. Lowe and DeSando had been moderator and panelist respectively on TV 25's "World Film Classics" for several years. Both have been professors, Lowe at The Ohio State University and DeSando at Franklin University in Columbus, Ohio.

A dark and ambivalent version.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

Luc Jacquet has done the impossible.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

Films reviewed: Fantastic Four, Dark Water, Brothers

By hosts John DeSando and Clay Lowe

"It's Movie Time" has won 8 national awards including Silver Microphone and Communicator national honors.

Drs. Lowe and DeSando had been moderator and panelist respectively on TV 25's "World Film Classics" for several years. Both have been professors, Lowe at The Ohio State University and DeSando at Franklin University in Columbus, Ohio.

The awful reality of a vulnerable mother.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time

A Fantastic Letdown

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

After solid appearances this year of Sin City and Batman, seeing comic book adaptation Fantastic Four is a fantastic letdown: The general idea about four colleagues in the space business undergoing radical physical changes is interesting but the execution is loud and repetitive, and the actors are disconnected from their mission.

A rip-roaringly terrifying invasion tale.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

"When adverse foreigners affright my towns

With dreadful pomp of stout invasion!" Shakespeare's King John

Stephen Spielberg phoned home from The Terminal, connected with his inner genius once more, and gives us an excellent remake of War of the Worlds touched with his signature obsession about family and graced with special effects that simulate the terror of invasion, as only the Iraquis and Afghans could understand.

An enjoyably scary rehash.

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"