The Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-76) is a compelling anomaly, the fodder for a myriad of fictional and nonfictional accounts by scintillating writers: “Wild Swans”,Jung Chang; “Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress”, Dai Sijie; “A Leaf in the Bitter Wind: A Memoir”, Ting-Xing Ye; and the incomparable Pearl S. Buck’s “Three daughters of Madame Liang”.  Director Zhang Yimou’s film adaptation of …

Johnny Depp is captivating, mesmerizing as satanic James “Whitey” Bulger, Boston’s quintessential crime and drug sovereign in the 1970’s-80’s; warped dictator of the “Winter Hill Gang”.  Director Scott Cooper’s “Black Mass” is imbued with hefty performances from Joel Edgerton, as untoward FBI agent, John Connolly; Kevin Bacon, a righteous FBI agent, Charles McGuire; Benedict Cumberbatch, minimally used as Billy Bulger …

The only thing heroic about this formulaic, Bollywood romantic extravaganza is the time spent waiting for the conclusion; two newcomers, Sooraj Pancholi and Athiya Shetty play star-crossed lovers in a remake of Subhash Ghai’s 1983 version of the same title; once was sufficient, but Salman Khan  (producer) feels “imitation” is the highest form of flattery and commerce; seasoned audiences will …

M. Night Shyamalan, has captured his elusive groove, and audiences can shiver, viewing his tantalizing, titillating tale of two charming, disarming, precocious teenagers going to visit their maternal grandparents; Mom’s (Kathryn Hahn) estranged parents, longing to finally meet their genetic-connection. Fifteen-year-old “Becca” (sensational, stunning Olivia DeJonge) in the embryonic phase as a documentarian, films the entire excursion from commencement to …

Documentarian, Alex Gibney’s  brazen honesty and prescience, gifts viewers the “good, bad, and ugly” dimensions of Steve Jobs; “adopted visionary”, iconoclastic, unconventional genius; a man whose passing was mourned globally (1956-2011); since his death, his aura has exceeded mythic proportions; an exceptional man whose ambition and lust for technological advancement has changed the world and how we thrive in it …

Heart-arresting, thrillingly beautiful, positively poignant documentary focusing on three men’s obsession with the ultimate peak, “shark’s fin” Meru Mountain; a spiritual, 21,000 foot behemoth in Gharwal, Himalaya, India. Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk, disparate personalities linked by their super-human skills in scaling the most inflexible, hostile of mountains; even more amazing is filming their death-defying pilgrimage; “Meru” is …

Stephen and Alex (also directed) Kendrick, writers of the surprisingly sensational, low-budget film “War Room” are comforted by audiences’ approval of a movie that bludgeons with its monumental religious message: cease judging others, accept Jesus in your heart and hearth, cast out evil; only then may you join the ranks of the righteous. The “war room” is a metaphor for …

August 2010, I was at the inauguration of the renovated Taj Mahal Place Hotel in Mumbai, India (originally opened in 1903); it was not my first stay in this iconic, historical bastion of beauty, civility,  unfathomed wealth, facing the Gateway of India; wide, silent halls, decked with Eastern antiquities and splendor, lend an aura of magnificence, reflecting the depth of …

What I loved about this film was the lack of delineated suppositions; jarring, irritating, strident anomalies, whining, troubled, pressured protagonists; subterfuge, cataclysmic reversals; vampires and troubled teens; it was comforting, cozy watching septuagenarians stepping beyond their “years” , questing one more athletic accomplishment before relegating their dreams, unfulfilled fantasies, to the dormitory of life’s regrets. Robert Redford and Nick Nolte, …

Preposterous plot, nonetheless compelling, riveting; manipulative, exploitive; sensationalistic, exaggerated from commencement to conclusion. “Jack Dwyer”, having bombed in his profession in the US, drags his family to some unnamed Southeast Asian country, where he is hired, by a mega- corporation, to purify their water supply; neglecting to delve into the xenophobia of the population, they arrive in the middle of …