September 9, 2015
(Times of India) – These five doctors were friends at the Calcutta Medical College who bonded not only through class lectures and practicals in the anatomy laboratory, but also on stage professionally. But now, they have decided to graduate beyond … Read More
July 24, 2015
(Times of India) – This is the framework for the 2014 Peabody Award-winning documentary, Human Harvest, by Canadian filmmaker Leon Lee. The film focuses on Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa) practitioners, who are said to be the main victims of … Read More
May 27, 2015
(Discover Magazine) – Furiosa has already been hailed by many as one of the strongest female action heroines to grace the silver screen in years. But “Mad Max: Fury Road” is also drawing praise for how it depicts Furiosa as the wearer of an artificial limb without … Read More
May 25, 2015
(New York Times) – “The Farewell Party,” an Israeli comedy about euthanasia, steers a careful course between humor and pathos while playing down overtly political and religious arguments for and against assisted suicide. The first feature of its creative team, … Read More
April 16, 2015
(The Atlantic) – From this point of view, Ex Machina feels less like a sci-fi thriller and more like a survival story whose exploration of artificial intelligence has more in common with ethical debates about animal rights than it does … Read More
April 10, 2015
(U.S.A. Today) – When sci-fi hits that sweet spot, it can be endlessly thought-provoking. Such is the case with the stylish, tense and terrifically acted Ex Machina, a complex drama about artificial intelligence (*** ½ out of four; rated R; … Read More
April 7, 2015
(Daily Mail) – When reports first emerged from China in 2006 that state-run hospitals were killing prisoners of conscience to sell their organs, it seemed too horrible to be true. However, a new documentary is about to blow the lid … Read More
March 17, 2015
(The Wall Street Journal) – The South by Southwest festival of tech, film and music features lively debates over the benefits, and risks, or artificial intelligence. Which made it a good setting for the North American debut of “Ex Machina,” … Read More
January 26, 2015
(The Guardian) – At a key moment in novelist-turned-film-maker Alex Garland’s provocative sci-fi flick, a naive young computer programmer asks the Colonel Kurtz-like creator of an impressively human artificial intelligence why he chose to sexualise his robot; to give it … Read More
January 2, 2015
(The Epoch Times) – Where can you go for a no-questions-asked organ transplant? If you said China, you win a free kidney, symbolically speaking of course. However, the dodgy Chinese hospital that Yoo-ri’s father has been referred to has a … Read More
October 1, 2014
(The Wall Street Journal) – The first feature film based on the story of a South Korean scientist’s fraudulent stem cell research and the ensuing fallout in the early 2000s, “Whistle Blower,” centers on a dilemma: “Which should take priority: truth or the national interest?” The title character … Read More
September 29, 2014
(Korea JoongAng Daily) – So the stakes were set high for Yim Soon-rye’s latest film “Whistle Blower,” inspired by the infamous Hwang Woo-suk scandal that shook the nation in 2005 when it was discovered that the scientist’s stem cell research … Read More
September 11, 2014
(USA Today) – An elderly man known as The Giver retains the memory of the “old world” and must pass it to a chosen Receiver, a boy named Jonas. Coming out of his allegorical cave with newfound knowledge of reality, … Read More
August 20, 2014
(The Telegraph) – Obvious Child is being described as an ‘abortion comedy’. It tells the story of 20-something Donna, who works in a bookshop and does stand-up comedy in her spare time. When she falls pregnant after a one-night stand … Read More
August 13, 2014
(Washington Post) – In “The Genius of Marian,” documentary filmmaker Banker White tells the story of his mother, and her struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. The film, which airs nationally for the first time on PBS’s POV on Sept. 8, works … Read More
August 13, 2014
(The Toronto Star) – Canada’s health system made Rama Rau open her eyes to ugly secrets in her native India, prompting her to ask her women friends why so many had scars on their sides. And it led to the … Read More
May 23, 2014
(Beliefnet) – Director Carolyn Jones told me that she learned more from Sister Stephen than anyone she has ever met. Sister Stephen is an end-of-life nurse featured in Jones’ documentary, The American Nurse. I also learned a great deal from … Read More
April 22, 2014
(Washington Post) – Photographer and filmmaker Carolyn Jones created “The American Nurse” after publishing a coffee-table book on the subject two years ago, and the film builds on the same mix of powerful images with words of men and women … Read More
April 8, 2014
(The Globe and Mail) – “My name is Cindy Cowan. I have late-stage ovarian cancer and I would like to have the choice in how I end my life.” Those words are spoken early in The Trouble with Dying (Vision … Read More
March 26, 2014
(The Telegraph) – Caity Lotz is an artificial intelligence in the process of coming alive. There are guns and disasters throughout her turn in new release The Machine, yet she’s optimistic about a future where the robots live among us. … Read More
March 10, 2014
(New York Times) – Figures observed through frosted glass as they engage in semi-audible conversation: That mysterious tableau, which begins Valeria Golino’s film “Honey,” defines the detached sensibility of the title character. “Honey” (“miele” in Italian) is the code name … Read More
January 16, 2014
Marianna Palka, who left Scotland to pursue a career in filmmaking in the United States, knew she had a “50-50” chance of getting Huntington’s disease, a rare, but devastating genetic disease that has been described as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and ALS, … Read More
January 16, 2014
In ‘Transcendence’, Johnny Depp plays a brilliant scientist whose mind is allowed to live on and evolve through artificial intelligence, after his body is attacked. (U.S.A. Today)
December 26, 2013
This is spooky stuff, but it’s real and it’s already happening. Humans are augmenting themselves with computers and technology that will expand their abilities, and it’s going to get more advanced and morally complex as time passes. Imagine transplanting your entire consciousness … Read More
November 6, 2013
How much is your life worth? If you suffer a heart attack, get bypass surgery, and stay in the hospital for several weeks, you’re looking at about $100,000. If you need insulin to keep from lapsing into a diabetic coma, … Read More
