Directors/writers Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza create one of the most fermented, realistic films about experiences suffered in Iraq in 2006; Ray Mendoza a Navy Seal depicts, in real time, the hideous and brutally gory re-enactment of an ambush that indelibly, both physically and psychologically, maimed these stalwart soldiers.  Of the myriads of war movies, this film rips and shreds …

On a recent sojourn in the city of bemouth culture I experienced a film, never seen, ever heard of, with wonderment and enchantment, a love story, without salacious, physical intimacy, just poignant, heart encompassing devotion. A story of love at first glimpse, palpating with bona fide longing, yearning for requitement. Directed by Max Ophuls (1902-1957), based on a novella written …

Periodically you visit a film that strikes the perfect cord, totally in sync, aligned with the human condition. “Bob Travino Likes It” is such a film, unique in its universality, appealing to anyone whose life has been informed by parental love or denied it; “Lily Travino” (Barbie Ferreira’s, stratospherically gifted performance stuns with its remarkability) quivers with the total absence …

Director Barry Levinson and actor Robert De Niro have a long and varied filmic relationship: “Sleepers”, “Wag the Dog” “What Just Happened”, “The Wizard of Lies”, and present day “The Alto Knights”; De Niro bests his previous roles depicting gangsters Frank Costello and Vito Genovese; never are viewers confused as to who is who. It is a homage to men …

Stylishly slick.  Prescient, well-honed actors at their physical peak working under the direction of Steven Soderberg. Writer David Koepp’s sensationally written script sucks audiences into a whirlpool of deception, espionage, infidelity, monogamy, dizzying intrigue. It is a festering guessing game guaranteed to demand one’s keen concentration, its hair-raising pace sears with divine, glamorous deceit. A black bag  exists, but also …

“Salome” and I have been friends for eons; our first encounter was in Bible Studies, she was introduced as a Jewish princess, daughter of Herodias and step-daughter of Herod Antipas; cursed with immeasurable beauty and an ungodly, iniquitous mother, demanding the head of John the Baptist, basically strip-teasing for her licentious stepfather; at sixteen she should have known better. Nonetheless, …

I liked “Anora” (review here) but never to the extent of its victories at this year’s Academy Awards; there is an undiagnosed, mystifying meme that seems to infect, percolate between the voters; this year it reflects the mission to elevate the sex-worker to the same level as “Oppenheimer”, “12 Years a Slave” etc. I have no objection to the theme …

Actually, a better choice is to revisit Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” which commences thousands of years ago where two tropes of gorillas, are fighting for dominance (reminiscent of 2024 election between the Democrats and Republicans); Kubrick’s genius in 1968 is revelatory in its vision: viable planets, unimaginable transport, and the remarkability of Artificial Intelligence (“Hal” vs “Siri”) opening …

Another banner year in movie-making history; in so many ways it was glorifying, shockingly innovative and uproarious, titillating fun. Countless times I exited smiling, smirking, thinking “I got it”, I wasn’t fooled, but enriched by the ambiguity; directors have unleashed their colossal control, allowing viewers to fill in the blanks. Recently a woman told me that she felt from the …

An intensely orchestrated and depicted feud between two Irish families in the solemn, untarnished, unforgiving landscape of the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland; Shakesperean in scale (Montagues & Capulets) the shepherding world collides catastrophically between the O’Sheas and Keelys; “Michael O’Shea” (Christopher Abbott, silently sensational), seething with a history of remorse and under the tyrannical tutelage of his father “Ray” (crucial …