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Monthly Archives: April 2017

THE CIRCLE

George Orwell’s “1984” was published in 1949; eerily disturbing, futuristic portrait of a world where privacy was banned; lives were watched and controlled by “Big Brother”; rules broken led to annihilation. Director James Ponsoldt’s “The Circle” (based on Dave Eggers 2014 novel) is a more benign, palliative world but just as invasive and lethal.  Tom Hanks as “Circle” Founder, “Eamon …

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THE LOST CITY OF Z

The prize for territorial inquisitiveness is championed by the British, it is imbedded in their DNA: Sir Frances Drake, 1540-1597 (circumnavigated the globe); Sir Walter Raleigh, 1552-1618 (the New World, Virginia); James Cooke, 1728-1779 (New Zealand); David Livingston, 1813-1872 (Africa); Percy Harrison Fawcett, 1867-1925 (South America) and the focus of the spectacular “The Lost City of Z”. Writer/director James Gray …

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NORMAN: THE MODERATE RISE AND TRAGIC FALL OF A NEW YORK FIXER

Live long enough and you’re destined to encounter “Norman”; abrasive, aggressively assertive, refuses to be ignored, impossible to insult, but beneath all the “mishegoss” lies a decent heart and soul of a loveable, annoying charmer. Richard Gere sears with his astounding performance as a man desperate to “fix” sticky, tricky situations, “Norman Oppenheimer”, nattily dressed, ceaselessly on his phone, walking …

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THE PROMISE

Arshile Gorky (1904-1948) was the artistic bridge between European Surrealism and American Abstract Expressionism; his most iconic work is a portrait of his mother and himself as a young boy; she died in his arms of starvation during the Turkish attempt to annihilate the Armenian population; between 1915 and 1923 over a million and a half Armenians were assassinated, starved, …

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QUEEN OF THE DESERT (ON DEMAND) & IN THEATRES

Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was a woman among men, born into restricted British aristocracy; brilliant, Oxford scholar, bored with the limited horizons of a young Victorian woman; she escapes to Tehran, Persia in 1892, where her uncle was the British ambassador; free, her intellect soared, and for the rest of her life Orientalism and its enigmas taunted her taste buds, ignited her …

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THEIR FINEST

Last year, on the advice of my sage sister, I binge-watched Britain’s television detective drama, “Foyles’s War” (2002-2015); truly one of the “finest” programs, written by Antony Horowitz, I have ever indulged in; commencing in 1940 the scenario stretches through WWII and beyond; starring Michael Kitchen as detective “Christopher Foyle” and Honeysuckle Weeks as his driver “Samantha Stewart” two of …

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TOMMY’S HONOUR

Golf has always been, and most likely always will be an unfathomable sport, its subtleties lost on the likes of me (to the frustration of my friends); my limited knowledge garnished from reading “Nancy Drew Mysteries” in my youth and viewing the sundry films focusing on the art of the game: “The Greatest Game Ever Played”, “Tin Cup”, “Bobby Jones”, “The …

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GIFTED

This remarkably sensitive film, with intuitive prescience, addresses the pain and profound isolation of a child genius; in the past they were freakishly moved to classrooms, universities of their intellectual peers; the loneliness of a seven-year-old, surrounded by adults, whose physical prowess overwhelmingly intimidates a pre-pubescent little person; robbed of a natural childhood, theirs is a warped world defined by their …

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NAAM SHABANA HINDI: ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Shed any prejudices you might have against the Bollywood genre: “Naam Shabana” is as good as it gets in the outstandingly juicy “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” or vandalized category; in league with two of my favorites, “Kahaani” (2012) and the superlative “Ek Hasina Thi” (2004), director Shivam Nair scores sensationally with this thriller, starring overwhelming talented …

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THE ZOOKEEPER’S WIFE

Jessica Chastain celestially soars as Antonina Zabinski, the wife of Jan Zabinski (powerful Johan Heldenbergh) chief zoologist at the Warsaw Zoo. Based on the book by Diane Ackerman and directed by Niki Caro, this true story stunning displays the narrative of real life heroes; the courageousness of their actions saved hundreds of Jews, sequestered in the Warsaw Ghetto; their fate …

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