December, 1945 Poland. The brutal, blanched landscape has no intention of thawing, continuing to camouflage an isolated convent where atrocities have been initiated; piety butchered by unadulterated, unaccountable Russian soldiers. Director Anne Fontaine’s formidable “The Innocents”, based on an actual event,  challenges viewers to tread where sanctity has been annihilated, dehumanized by man. The second world war is over and …

The first time I saw Salman Khan (“Marigold”) I was overwhelmed by his stunning beauty, a luminous countenance worthy of launching a thousand films; it mattered little that the film was awful, looking at him justified the price of admission. Now, almost ten years later, gone is the beauty, replaced by burgeoning brawn and surprisingly honed acting acuity. He is …

Based on John le Carre’s (1931) 22nd book, directed by Susanna White, would have fared better as a television mini-series; even then it could not match the recent BBC production of “The Night Manager” staring Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie. The tepid title lends little legitimacy to what the masses surmise as traitors: Mata Hari, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Aldrich …

This enchanting fairy tale is poignantly real, heart warming, painful and beautiful; adult viewers will be moved, not just to uproarious laughter, but also frequent tears. Based on the book by Roald Dahl, director Steven Spielberg and writer Melissa Mathison excavate the vast corridors of their imaginative souls and gift besotted audiences a gentle giant and bespectacled orphan destined to inhabit …

India is cursed with its drug chaos, a ubiquitous issue plaguing nations worldwide. “Udta Punjab” is a serious, if at times sensational, depiction of the epidemic, its victims, perpetrators and the pervasiveness of this evil  “weapon of mass destruction”. Director Abhishek Chaubey has culled a superior cast to portray fictional characters in a realistic setting: Shahid Kapoor is “Tommy Singh”,  …

Matthew McConaughey is a presence, a gargantuan force in the film world; amazingly, each characterization transcends his prior role. This trait is vividly, pivotally evident in “Free State of Jones” where as “Newton Knight” a deserter from the Confederate Army, in the war between the states (Southerners contend that there was nothing “civil” about it), he leads a disparate pack …

“When a great genius appears in the world you can know him by this sign: that the dunces are all in a confederacy against him.” Jonathan Swift Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938) railed against his detractors until he was championed by Max Perkins (1884-1947), editor of Charles Schreiber’s Publishing. Max, a man whose prescience recognized and lionized writers Ernest Hemmingway, F. Scott …

Penelope Cruz gives a dazzling performance as a vibrant schoolteacher, mother coping with the ugliness of breast cancer;  she soars as “Magda”, never shunning, hiding from the inevitability of her prognoses; she loves her soccer-playing son “Dani” (poignant portrayal by Teo Planell) with pure, uncensored, palpable devotion. Magda’s contagious, uninhibited  joy infects all who enter her sphere;  grieving “Arturo” (beautiful, …

There are minimal films where an actor is so remarkable that their performance transcends sentimentality: 2014’s “The Fault in Our Stars”, starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort, whose profound characterizations pulverized the tear ducts of the most frigid cynics, and now “Me Before You’’ (based on the novel by JoJo Moyes) director Thea Sharrock’s weepy, wonderful story of a beautiful, …

The creators of “The Good Wife” based their long-running television series (2009-2016) on women who stick by their politicians; husbands, caught and publically exposed, egregiously in violation of their marital vows. Anthony Weiner, a bombastic U.S. Representative (D. New York), resigned from Congress in 2011, after his midnight electronic trysts were unveiled. Directors Elyse Steinberg and Josh Kriegman gift “Weiner” …