Hollywood

Director James Hawes gifts viewers an intelligent vigilante scenario where revenge is not served cold but steaming hot and calculated by CIA decoder “Charlie Heller” (Rami Malek is at the top of his prodigious acuity); quiescent behavior not in his DNA, he brilliantly plots the demise of the murderers who stole his link to joy. Based on the 1981 novel …

Two exceedingly likable actors, Meghann Fahy and Brandon Sklenar star in “Drop” an innovative scenario targeting the tech savvy viewer; those lacking in techie acuity will still unquestionably relish the ride. “Violet” (Fahy) has accepted an electronic date, her first since the death of her husband; leaving her five-year-old son “Toby” (Jacob Robinson) with her sister “Jen” (Violett Beane); she …

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 …

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 …