Director Malcolm D. Lee’s sequel to the 1999 “The Best Man” unites the terrific, well-seasoned cast in the first “happy holiday” film of 2013; hopefully , a positive forecast for a festive, fun commencement to a year in need of a jovial jolt. After years of separation “Mia” (sensitive, poignant performance by Monica Calhoun) invites college friends, whose lives and …

We worship, lionize our heroes, those who succeed, accomplish the impossible; we keep them protected in rarefied vitrines; we never dream of besting or defying their insurmountable, indefatigable feats;  they’re immortal, unflawed. Documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney, under the mesmerizing spell of legendary Lance Armstrong, seven- time (1999-2005) winner of the prestigious Tour de France, commences by making a film of …

Long anticipated,  Markus Zusak’s 2005 novel “The Book Thief” is pulsating from the wide screen; it has a certain glitz, fairy -tale, manipulative quality, but if you flow with the fantasy, allow the titillation, ignore the sensationalism, you’ll be enchanted, entertained. Narrated by the “Grim Reaper” , it’s 1938 Nazi Germany, his gluttonous plate perpetually burgeoning;  focuses on the world …

Urged by a super intuitive, intelligent friend, I grudgingly went to see “All Is Lost”; remarkably, one of the finest films of the year. I am in her debt. My trepidation was the resiliency of “Cast Away” (2000,film); Tom Hanks’  stupendous performance as a Fed Ex engineer stranded for years on an island; his sole companion “Wilson” (never have viewed …

There was a time when I found Charles Dickens, “Miss Havisham”(Helena Bonham Carter crafted for the character) wildly, weirdly, romantic; jilted on her wedding day, spending her life, encased in her bridal finery as sanity morphs into lunacy; preparing her ward, “Estella” for society and manipulating poor “Pip” whose “expectations” never attain “greatness”. Sadly, the tale is stale and incapable …

Matthew McConaughey joins the elite league of actors who have shed morbid amounts of weight to define the role’s they are depicting: Christian Bale  “The Machinest” Michael Fassbender, “Hunger”, contemporaries; three men, young enough to replenish what they sacrificed in months of scary, voluntary anorexia. Matthew McConaughey, as nonfictional “Ron Woodroof”: raunchy, alcoholic, drug- addicted, heterosexual; diagnosed HIV positive in …

1943, Allen Ginsberg (1926-97) receives a scholarship to Columbia University, New York City; plagued with a dysfunctional, delusional mother;  his father, a published poet, encourages his exit. From the moment he commences college, his psychological shackles are unhinged by classmate Lucian Carr (1925-2005); bright, indolent, beautiful, he introduces Ginsberg to Jack Kerouak (1922-69), William S.Burroughs (1914-97) and outsider David Kammerer …

Father and son, director Rakesh Roshan, actor Hrithik Roshan bring the Bollywood version of the “masked man” to audiences who craved the long anticipated third chapter of an Indian messiah, destined to cleanse the Eastern world of plagues, airplane disasters, and nefarious two-legged villains whose mission is to recreate the world in their own vile image. In any science fiction …

Director Abdellatif Kechiche depicts an achingly profound portrait of isolation, loneliness, separateness, love. “Adele” is seventeen, intelligent, inquisitive, conflicted; plagued by untoward fantasies; living with parents, ignorant of their complex progeny. It is the twenty- first century, the parameters between naivety, childhood and carnal knowledge have shrunk, intimacy is the norm, expected, practiced by all over 16; dissected in flagrantly …

Two months ago I was feted, by my children, to a gastronomical degustation, fit for royalty; four hours of unrelenting, awesome culinary creations; organic, sculptural, floating, fired artistry defying the imagination and palate; cuisine, mythically inspired by a genius, whose gifts surpass Olympian proportions, chef Grant Achatz , renown innovator and owner of “Alinea”, a Michelin three-star restaurant, in Chicago. …