Jasenovac: the Auschwitz of the Balkans, as seen through the eyes of Serbian, ten-year-old “Dara”; director Predrag Antonijevic concentrates on the entrepreneurial system of slaughter perpetrated on the Serbs by Ustasas (Croation Revolutionary Movement) mimicking Nazi’s “Final Solution”; ingrained xenophobia practiced without impunity on men, women and their progeny; games of execution visited upon inmates and children, witnessed by Dara, …

A trio of Academy Award Winners give it their optimum to generate suspense in director John Lee Hancock’s “The Little Things”: Denzel Washington, always captivating, depicts Deputy Sheriff “Joe Deacon” haunted by an aged blunder; Rami Malek, Detective “Jim Baxter”, too slight for the role, and the weakest character,  doomed from the onset to topple from the marketable pedestal the …

Supernovas are celestial, ephemeral stars, whose explosions, for moments, blaze center stage in a firmament, theatre, of unparalleled transcendence; oftentimes delegated to those who die, before their audience is requited: John F. Kennedy and his son John Jr., James Dean, Princess Diana, River Phoenix, Sylvia Plath, Amy Winehouse, Prince, Kobe Bryant. Director Harry Macqueen with actors Stanley Tucci (“Tusker”) and …

Awash in bucolic dignity “A Dig” directed by Simon Stone, is a film that is sublimely comfortable, comparable to a well-worn sweater, an unassuming evening with a forever friend, cloaked with time’s cherished reminiscences; an untarnished English landscape; practicing RAF pilots, the only hint of upcoming transitions; it is 1939 and wealthy widow, Edith Pretty (a noble, gifted performance by …

For almost a year, connectedness, education, entertainment have been accomplished in a Zoom milieu; enhancing enforced isolation, allowing the unseen to be seen, the learned expanding intellectual horizons; a remarkable tool, liberating the masses from mandatory house arrest. Recently, in a mini review I touted the enticements of viewing “A French Village”; seven seasons, seventy-two episodes, (2009-2017) seemed daunting, but …

Anyone who has ever experienced the hair-raising, cacophonous symphony conducted on the streets, alleys, highways of a tireless India metropolis, will empathize completely with the skill of the conductors, drivers of any vehicle, be it rickshaw, car, bus or truck; “Balram” (Adarsh Gourav, genuinely puissant) from a lower caste, splays his rise as an entrepreneur in a series of flashbacks. …

Carey Mulligan, along with actors, (to name a few) Natalie Portman, Jodi Foster, Emma Watson, Lupita Nyong’o has a rarefied intelligence quotient; being smart is the characterizing trait of “Cassandra” a coffee counter-girl, pursuing, diligently, men who prey on inebriated women; her virtuosity is disquieting and Mulligan is masterful in the role. Except for the finale “Promising Young Woman” directed …

Inimitable Tom Hanks adds to his repertoire of captivating characters with his elucidation of “Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd”, a Civil War veteran, traveling the untutored west in 1870, preaching the “news of the world”, in layman terms, a town crier; Hanks imbues Kidd with a refined elegance, dignity, a compelling grace, but when tested, his ire cannot be bested; discovering …

“SPIRAL” (2005-2021) (Amazon Prime) Thumping at the pinnacle of my “Must Watch” list is this gritty, compulsively addictive, detective series; a Paris, rarely seen by tourists: dirty dens of iniquity, gory, egregiously stunning scenarios, no topic is sacrosanct, unbiased demographically, whether victim or perpetrator your proclivities are splayed, vivisected, informed by reality; justice meted in tandem with the crime. Brilliantly …

Two ambitious films excavating the lives of women, justifiably, “on the verge of a nervous breakdown”. “HERSELF” directed by Phyllida Lloyd, starring writer and actor Clare Dunn, focuses on abused wife/mother “Sandra”; she is destitute, living on state benefits, residing in a hotel with her two young daughters (enchanting depictions by Molly McCann and Ruby Rose O’Hara), eking out a …