The American Film Institute’s annual film festival is arguably Los Angeles’ best and most comprehensive annual fete of feature, documentary, short, animated, domestic and foreign cinema, plus panels and parties, taking place in Hollywood from Nov. 14-21. Here are capsule reviews of some of AFI Fest 2019’s myriad productions.

CLEMENCY: Film Review

Dead Woman Walking: A Capital Film on Capital Punishment

[NOTE: This review may contain plot spoilers.]

With her first full-length feature film, Chinonye Chukwu’s Clemency is a gripping death penalty drama. (Her 2012 Alaskaland was only 75 minutes long.) The movie opens and closes with a legally sanctioned execution that is botched at a prison (after a screening the writer/director told the AFI audience that Clemency was shot on location in a penitentiary no longer in use, which enhances and heightens the movie’s realism).

The American Film Institute’s annual film festival is arguably Los Angeles’ best and most comprehensive annual fete of feature, documentary, short, animated, domestic and foreign cinema, plus panels and parties, taking place in Hollywood from Nov. 14-21. Here are capsule reviews of some of AFI Fest 2019’s myriad productions.

DESERT ONE: Film Review

From Harlan to Hormel to Hemingway to Hostages, two-time Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple is one of America’s preeminent documentarians. Her first nonfiction film, 1976’s Harlan County USA, as well as 1990’s American Dream were class struggle epics about Kentucky coalminers and striking workers at a Hormel factory in Minnesota that both won the Best Documentary Oscar. The insightful, incisive Kopple has also tackled our inner life and was Emmy co-nominated for 2013’s Running from Crazy, exploring mental illness largely through actress Mariel Hemingway, who grappled with her grandfather Ernest’s apparent suicide and her sister Margaux’s self-inflicted death.

Friday, November 22, 4-6pm
Ohio Statehouse
Punctuate the end of the second week of impeachment hearings. Push forward to let the public and our Congress know we will not stand by and allow Trump's criminal treasonous actions.
We will briefly recap the evidence and testimony that has been presented before we march to Senator Portman's office to deliver messages demanding Portman support country over party. If you want to go up to Portman's office please prepare your statement.
We will follow with a picket parade around the statehouse.

Thursday, November 21, 2019, 6:00 PM
The search committee for the next Columbus Police Chief has narrowed down its search to two finalists for the position: Thomas Quinlan, Interim Police Chief, City of Columbus Division of Police and Perry Tarrant, former Assistant Chief of Police, Seattle Police Department, Seattle, Washington. The next Police Chief could be announced by the end of the year. The forum will be livestreamed.  Location:  East High School, 1500 E. Broad St.  More information here.

“Somebody ought to put a bullet in her skull. Back in the day, our forefathers would have put a bullet in her [expletive].”

These words, uttered by some lost soul, were directed at U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar earlier this year. He had called her office and talked to a staffer, calling the congresswoman a terrorist and spewing out his death threat on behalf of the fantasy Founding Fathers. He was later arrested.