Foreign

This year has voyeuristically regaled audiences with two remarkable films by auteurs who culled from their memories, splayed on the screen, with respectful redolence, their lineage: “Roma” (reviewed 12/9), directed by Alfonso Cuaron (b.1961)  and “Cold War”, a masterpiece directed by Pawel Pawlikowski (b.1957); reverence resonates throughout both movies; filmed in black and white, uncompromised by color, seize and steadfastly …

A microcosm in a sphere that has ignored, overlooked them; director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s (“After the Storm”) enchanting tale, beautifully scripted, has viewers rooting for the illegal success of the “shoplifters”: “Osamu” (Lily Franky) and “Shota” (Jyo Kairi) effortlessly depict a copacetic team of thieves (their wonderfully warped logic; “if it’s in a store, it belongs to no one”, satisfying the …

A night of glitz and glamour (Lady Gaga in an award winning gown), more importantly a night of civility and class; it was as if the egregiousness of this past year was left in the wake of a new era; the presenters and winners, like the strongest steel, emerged from the flames, surviving a year of discontent, stronger, highly polished …

Profundity prevails in this sweeping, magnificently glorious film; director/writer Alfonso Cuaron’s reminiscent tale of life in a middle class Mexican family stuns with its purity, lack of guile, genuine veracity; black and white format emphasizes the functionality of a household whose maid “Cleo” (newcomer, Yalitza Aparicio) adhesively keeps the family, and its daily mechanisms in tow; Cleo is worthy of …

For those living in unfriendly weather environments, to those with physical challenges and the multitudes who lovingly lounge, cling on long, lazy weekends to their couches, here are some films to fill the hours: “The Kindergarten Teacher” Netflix. Maggie Gyllenhaal enthralls in a remake of 2014’s Israeli film of the same title. A frustrated, mediocre poet, discovers a poetic prodigy …

For over eleven years and 1000 plus reviews, my sporadic filmic intermissions rejuvenate, not only my spirit, but how I view films; the escapism of movies, relief from reality, a hiatus from daily duties, is healthy, but has to be balanced with the flavor of things as they actually exist; blinders off, focusing on globalization and its effects on the …

So many of you have requested this filmic information. They are listed as I have seen them. For reviews check Peneflix archives, everyone’s taste is infused with different flavors; READ reviews before viewing; consider yourself forewarned. I love the twisted, foreign, horror genres along with soapy, platitudinous, sentimental, saccharine fare. BLACK PANTHER OPERATION RED SEA (CHINESE) LOVE, SIMON FOXTROT (ISRAEL) …

Director Henri-Georges Clouzot (1907-1977) the eminent emperor of French film noir (his American counterpart, Alfred Hitchcock) is rising from the morgue, via digitally enhanced classics; “The Murderer Lives at Number 21”, made in 1942, during German occupation of Paris; black and white, as in the archival photographic process, cements viewers concentration on the characters; scintillatingly diverse, wickedly witty, Clouzot’s prodigious …

Director/writer Ramon Salazar’s “Sunday’s Illness” is as good as any film playing in today’s theaters; opening earlier this year at the Berlin Film Festival, Netflix’s prescience is a boon to those who crave watching excellence in one’s living room. Unlike any mother/daughter relationship you’ve experienced, nuances subtly revealed, profound performances, make this film a thrilling, psychologically titillating scenario. “Anabel” (Susi …

Springing from Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin’s (1797-1851) fecund imagination is one of literature’s finest, bleakest, most sorrowful creatures, “Frankenstein”; written by Mary, while still eighteen years old, living with free-spirited, romantic British poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley (Douglass Booth), at the request of Lord Byron (Tom Sturridge), a rival poet; culling from her own experience, a desire to rearrange fate. Director Haifaa …