Michael Cohl Movies

After exploring the careers of the Band and Bob Dylan in The Last Waltz and No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, respectively, acclaimed director Martin Scorsese turns his lens on rock & roll legends the Rolling Stones for this feature focusing on two concerts from the band's 2006 A Bigger Bang tour. In addition to extensive coverage of the band's two-night stand at New York's Beacon Theater (an engagement that was staged as part of President Bill Clinton's lavish birthday bash), the film also features historical footage, interviews, and behind-the-scenes footage from decades past. Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson (JFK and The Aviator) supervised photography for the film, with an impressive array of A-list talents, including Andrew Lesnie, John Toll, Ellen Kuras, Anastas Michos, Stuart Dryburgh, Declan Quinn, Emmanuel Lubezki, Robert Elswit, and Albert Maysles, stepping in to insure that the Beacon performances were covered from every angle possible. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The reflective documentary Pete Seeger: The Power of Song explores the legacy of revered American folk singer and activist Seeger - written and directed by filmmaker Jim Brown when Seeger was in his late '80s. In lieu of recounting the narrative of Seeger's life note-for-note, however, Brown uses that individual biography as a contextual lens, through which he recounts decades of American social history. To tell his story, the filmmaker interpolates original, exclusive interviews with such Seeger contemporaries as Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, archival footage of Seeger in concert, and extracts from Seeger's private home movies. In the process, Brown unveils the extent to which Seeger continually prompted societal change through his consciousness-raising music and offstage social efforts. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Five students driving through the desert encounter the inescapable stench of death in director David Payne's retro-inspired slasher/monster/supernatural horror hybrid. The highway has been inexplicably closed, forcing five young travelers into a mysteriously abandoned travel oasis where they are soon confronted with disturbing visions of maimed travelers. Disturbed by the grisly series of visions and determined to escape the spooky motel and diner before whatever killed the previous customers returns, the frightened travelers soon meet a frantic stranger who claims to have recently lost his wife to a terrifying entity that seems to hover between life and death. As the night falls, a blind grad student with heightened senses proves the only hope for survival as the body count begins to rise and the smell of death becomes too suffocating to endure. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

This Canadian drama assumes the style of a documentary as it follows a bitter custody battle between a mother and grandmother over a little girl. Monika, a blues singer and pianist from Toronto, aspires to fame and fortune. She also aspires to reclaim her 12-year old daughter Andrea whom she left with her mother Anna. Anna has legal guardianship and is regarded by Andrea as her birth mother. When the truth comes out, the girl becomes a pawn in the ugly, battle between two self-serving women. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Apart from early appearances by Jason Alexander and Holly Hunter, an interesting score by Rick Wakeman, and some typically effective work by effects icon Tom Savini, this slasher film is also among the more frightening of its kind. The plot concerns a summer-camp caretaker named Cropsy (Lou David) who is horribly burned by mischievous teen campers during a botched practical joke. Years later, he leaves the hospital as a disfigured gloppy mess with an axe (actually, hedgeclippers) to grind. After dispatching a local prostitute, Cropsy heads out to the wilderness to terrorize a group of campers. They're the usual bunch of horny, obnoxious teenagers, but there are some interesting performances by Larry Joshua as a mean-spirited bully and Brian Backer (of Fast Times at Ridgemont High) as a put-upon nerd. The campers visit an island and, in a scene heavily cut by the ratings board prior to release, several of them die in a horrifying mass slaughter aboard a boat. The remaining teens are brutally picked off one by one until Cropsy is finally defeated. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide