THE PATIENT (Hulu) Abashedly, a friend and I walked out of 2005’s “40-Year-Old Virgin” with no regrets, never revisited it; also ignored “The Office”; it wasn’t until “Foxcatcher” (2014) followed by “The Big Short” (2015) and “Beautiful Boy” (2018) that I awakened to the stimulating fact that Steve Carell was so much more than a funny man; incubating beneath a …
Read More »IN THEATRES AND STREAMING
“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, …
Read More »A THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING (in theatres)
Enchantment. Having been nurtured, commencing at birth, with an inbred love of mythology; demigods of supernatural, powerful, pungent positivity or daredevil, iconoclastic, detrimental negativity; there is no placid, imperturbable middle ground; weened on the hopes of a fairy tale, realized. Oh, and who has not wished for the magical “Genie in a Bottle”, granting three wishes? The fantastical appeals to all ages, demographics. Director …
Read More »SPINE TINGLERS: WOMEN PERFORMANCES, TRANSCENDING SUBJECT MATTER
“ORPHAN: FIRST KILL” (streaming & in theatres) Isabelle Fuhrman gives a sensationally eerie depiction of a serial killer afflicted with Highlander Syndrome (hypopituitarism, stunted physical growth); she looks twelve but is thirty-one; an orphan from Estonia who poses as an American child, abducted years ago; Julia Stiles, “Tricia” the despondent mother, is equal to the challenge of a newfound daughter. …
Read More »VENGEANCE (in theatres)
James A. Michner’s “Texas” is an edifying novel about the vast state of Texas; it is mammoth, it could fit ten European countries, with room to spare, at approximately 270, 000 square miles (170,902,080 acres) and close to 30 million people; yet it is rare to meet someone who willingly leaves the state; Michner clarifies the anomaly. Because of its …
Read More »HEAT (1995 film) Amazon Prime
Last Sunday’s New York Times’s extensive article on writer/director Michael Mann, concentrating on his upcoming movie “Heat 2”, piqued my interest in a film I had never seen; a film of exceptional power, staggering achievement, mesmerizingly dazzling; “Heat” should be seen by anyone who wallows willingly in film’s “absolute beauty, visual joy and dreamlike sensibility”. “Heat” is a crime tale …
Read More »NOPE (IN THEATRES)
Director/writer Jordan Peele’s imaginative fecundity exponentially expands with each titillating, fascinating film; “Nope” casts its realistically horrifying premise from the onset; strange objects fly from the sky, lethally hitting “Otis Haywood” (philosophically prescient, Keith David) the owner of “Haywood Hollywood Horses”, leaving his son “OJ” (a Peele favorite, Daniel Kaluuya) to carry on the franchise; sister “Emerald” (Keke Palmer is …
Read More »THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED: THE STORY OF DON McLEAN’S “AMERICAN PIE” (PARAMOUNT+)
If one is commanded to watch one documentary a decade; “The Day the Music Died” is unequivocally, unmatched. From my first “listen”, “American Pie” with its bewitching lyrics, timelessness, inclusivity, sent chills from my brain, cascading through every organ, electrifying my soul and culminating in a dance, that even with age, takes flight and defies boundaries; I never experience life, …
Read More »PERSUASION (Netflix) & BLACK BIRD (Apple TV)
PERSUASION (NETFLIX) Novelist Jane Austen’s (1775-1817) “Persuasion” has survived a myriad of adaptations, many excellent, especially the 2007 version starring Sally Hawkins, Rupert Penry-Jones, Tobias Menzies; the 2022 Netflix rendition is an abomination; miscast, instead of electrifying, disastrously boring, using contemporary actors of all hues, squirming in their restrictive wardrobes, stilted dialogue, sprinkled with platitudeness cliches permeating an emotionless, limited scenario. Dakota Johnson’s (“50 Shades” celeb) valiant struggle …
Read More »WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING & THE BLACK PHONE (IN THEATRES)
Delia Owens novel was a sensational bestseller and one that I felt poetically matched its epic core and empathetically, the story of isolated creativity; “Kya, The Marsh Girl” pulsates with prodigious spirit, steadfastness and intelligence, a study of survival in the untrammeled marshlands of North Carolina. Daisy Edgar Jones inherently captures the cunning purity of an abandoned, shunned young woman, …
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