REVIEW: Bisbee ’17 [2018]

Thank you for riding the deportation express. On the surface it appears to be an illegal deportation of anti-union Americans at the hands of newly deputized company loyalists in Bisbee, Arizona. Approximately 1,200 copper mining strikers and sympathizers were rounded up at gunpoint in 1917, ushered into cattle cars, and driven over the border to New Mexico with the declaration that returning home would end in their death. Maybe the illegality of the incident was enough to keep it all a closely guarded secret, but digging further reveals another truth…

Read More

REVIEW: Mickey and the Bear [2019]

Sometimes you just lose track of time. Set in the small Montana town of Anaconda, writer/director Annabelle Attanasio‘s feature debut Mickey and the Bear takes pride in its authenticity. She was given a grant to conduct “ethnographic and visual research” into the community there so she could better understand its veteran population and close-knit history of helping each other cope with re-assimilation under increased financial, emotional, and psychological duress. Everybody knows everybody—a fact Attanasio uses to create a complex situational bubble around her lead character Mickey Peck (Camila Morrone). This…

Read More