Stonewall (opens in Cleveland September 25th exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre)

[STONEWALL opens in Cleveland on Friday September 25th exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by Pamela Zoslov

Poor Roland Emmerich. The director of action blockbusters like INDEPENDENCE DAY, GODZILLA and DAY AFTER TOMORROW, gets little enough respect. Now he's being attacked for his “labor of love,” STONEWALL, a movie dramatizing events surrounding the 1969 Stonewall riots, the New York City uprising that's considered the catalyst for the modern Gay Rights movement.


The German-born director, who is gay, was so committed to the project that he financed it himself, along with friends, and stepped in as director when no one else would. “Nobody wanted to do it,” he said in an interview online, “and I was stubborn, and then I got it done.”

Beyond the Reach (opens in Cleveland April 17th exclusively at Tower City Cinemas)

[BEYOND THE REACH opens in Cleveland on Friday April 17th exclusively at Tower City Cinemas.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

We know from the moment we see the way he's parked his Hummer across multiple spaces that John Madec, one of the two main characters in BEYOND THE REACH, is an asshole. The fact that he's from L.A. is offered up to further drive home the point, and if the audience still needed more convincing, he's played by Michael Douglas. Madec has stopped off in a small desert town with a special permit to hunt big horn sheep out of season, and has an extra fancy gun for just those purposes (again, asshole). But he needs a guide, and the best one available is a stoic young man named Ben (Jeremy Irvine) whose smart and sexy girlfriend (Hanna Mangan Lawrence) has just left town to attend college. Ben doesn't much care for Madec, but he can use the money and so agrees to take the gig.