Foreign

“BULLET TRAIN” (in theatres) It has been a rather thin, squishy summer of film; a myriad of mediocrity unworthy of brain waves, exceptions: “Top Gun”, “Official Competition”, “Hallelujah”, “Vengeance” and the recently reviewed “The Good Boss”. To shun ennui, I visited “Bullet Train” (Brad Pitt the primary draw); superciliousness on steroids but for some inexplainable rationale I found myself enjoying, …

Javiar Bardem scorches as “The Good Boss”, (“Julio Blanco”) a multifaceted, charismatic, childless owner of Blanco Scales; which tops the “scales” in satire, subtlety, metaphorical subterfuge; director/writer Leon de Aranoa’s intricately, prodigiously carved slice of comedic mockery, secures its place as one of the best films of 2022. Bardem’s compelling, masterly depiction of a man who has convinced his employees …

“INTIMACY”              (SPANISH: DUBBED ENGLISH)         NETFLIX A timely tale resonating with today’s invasive and chilling technology; a rising politician is surreptitiously filmed as she and her lover are carnally entwined on a deserted beach. Predictably, it goes viral, and the series evolves as the protagonists gallantly fight to resolve and cope …

“PEAKY BLINDERS” 6TH SEASON   NETFLIX In my estimation this season tops the others in writing, intense characterization and the effects of moral turpitude; Cillian Murphy, redolently ripe as “Tommy Shelby” sears as a man plagued by his misdeeds, its consequences, and religious retribution; farfetched, but reeks of legitimacy and the power of the mind to transcend reality. FOUR STARS!!!! …

Double your pleasure, comfortably, with two stunners now watchable on Netflix.  “Operation Mincemeat” is a captivating, engrossing enactment of a British 1943 mission of deception, a key to eventually besting the Germans in WWII; director John Madden (“Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”, “Shakespeare in Love”, “Miss Sloane”) with actors Colin Firth, Kelly Macdonald, Matthew Macfadyen portray an intensely intelligent, fiercely detailed …

Having never visited the popular series of the inimitable Crawley family, I judge the films as entities totally without preconceived intimacy of the characters; possibly unfair, but films take precedence above and beyond the world of television (which I also admire). I found 2019’s “Downton Abbey” rather abysmal, apart from Maggie Smith as matriarch “Violet Crawley”; since her riveting Academy …

Foreign films have always held a deep-seated fascination for me; they demand a high level of concentration because of the subtitles and the edifying exposure to the intricacies of filmmakers from variant cultures; their appeal is enormously gratifying. Director Eskil Vogt’s (“The Worst Person in the World”) creepily brilliant tale of children, one with psychokinesis, determining a milieu devoid of …

“VORTEX”  Dedicated “To all those whose brains will decompose before their hearts”; directed by Gasper Noe, “Vortex”, filmed as a diptych, a metaphor for the bifurcation of two lives, once entwined, now irrevocably fractured by age and its devastating vicissitudes; a husband and wife, “Liu” and “Elle” (incomparable Dario Argento and Francoise Lebrun) navigating the once familiar, now foreign, unknown …

“KGF CHAPTER 2”                 (HINDI: ENGLISH SUBTITLES)  THEATRES  Bombastically challenging is the second chapter of Robin Hood facsimile, “Rocky”, a humble boy who rises to gargantuan wealth, power and inspiration of the lower classes; Bollywood hunk, Yash, stars as the gilded gangster (generating adulation in India’s youth) and his monumental physique dominates every pungent, cacophonous moment of this action infused, bloody, …

“THE ANDY WARHOL DIARIES”     (NETFLIX)  Excellent, introspective, comprehensive study of a man who changed the medium, meaning of what constitutes “art”; Andy Warhol bulldozed the “pedestal”, “frame”, “vitrine”; rising above traditional “cross & crown”, the angst of Abstract Expressionism, focusing on contemporary, every day, and universal fascination with fame: television junkies, voyeuristic tabloids, shocking sensationalism of untimely demises, race riots, …