Zal Batmanglij's film, “Sound of My Voice,” could serve as a useful primer for a person who doesn't understand the psychology of how cults (religious or otherwise) snare their followers. It's playing downtown on K Street at the Crest Theater.This debut film, by a young director who's hardly written-up online, also keeps you focused with an added possibility of creeping you out not just a little bit.  Creep is common to movies with youth appeal. Batmanglij has help from co-writer Brit Marling, who takes a leading role in “Sound of My Voice” as well as producing.  Marling had the lead in another slightly off-center 2011 film called “Another Earth.” Maggie is Marling's character in “Sound o

“The Avengers” movie review by Gary Chew I stopped reading comic books in about 1950. Superman, Batman and Captain Marvel were my favorites. I was stoked when George Reeves as Superman and Adam West as Batman made it to pictures that move instead of merely being drawn (frozen in time) onto those colorful panels on paper. The narratives changed little. The good guy or guys and the badass or asses who wanted to take over Metropolis, Gotham City or the Earth were always there to give the story the conflict it needed: right and wrong clearly delineated. If the two were really only that easily discerned. It is about the same thing with “The Avengers,” a new film with action-packed serialized

. ‘A Thousand Kisses Deep’   Music Preview by Gary Chew Writing an aphoristic line defining Leonard Cohen may be as simple as taking a line from a song by him. “You live your life as if it’s real.” It’s one of the best lines in the haunting song “A Thousand Kisses Deep,” which is also the name of the concert of Cohen works scheduled for May 5 at the 24th Street Theatre. Fifteen Northern Californians will perform the all-Cohen program through song and recitation. Another line that might relate the essence of Cohen also comes from his pen: “Love is the only engine of survival.” Although Cohen isn’t describing himself with these phrases, the man offers his listeners much to think about

“Bully” film review – Gary Chew   Another polemic documentary film is here.  It's called “Bully.”  You can see it at the Tower Theater, Land Park Drive and Broadway, Sacramento.   Why would “Bully” not bring a feud with it? The opposing parties are those incensed by suicides of youngsters bullied into taking their lives, and another incensed faction that believes some victims being   followed in the documentary are targets of harassment due to being gay.  The latter group's conclusion is that director Lee Hirsch's blunt but not excessive film promotes a homosexual life style.   To think that it's more important that people should not hear about homosexuality than knowing there are pers

“Blue Like Jazz”  film review by Gary Chew You may ask yourself after watching a few minutes of “Blue Like Jazz” what a nice college-aged Houston boy and devout Baptist is doing driving his beat up car to Portland, Oregon to enroll at Reed College. His name is Donald (Marshall Allman). The movie opened Friday at the UA Market Square, 17434 Arden Way and the UA Laguna Village 12 at 8755 Center Parkway, Sacramento. Donald is not what most people think a young Christian man from Texas would be like. Donald's pretty hip and glib with one-liners. Since it's the lead, is probably why director Steve Taylor has Allman playing Donald as an agreeable nice guy who shows hardly any bad feelings tow