Hollywood

Periodically, it happens; almost instantly, acknowledging the worthiness of the movie, but wishing to remove oneself from the onslaught of massive, bludgeoning depression; “Diane” marvelously depicted by Mary Kay Place is a middle-aged depressive, her focus on others to the exclusion of her own issues, is devouring her sanity; she is a list maker, visiting and feeding the sick, working …

Marvelously manipulative, pushing all the right buttons, resulting in an ultimately satisfying movie experience; Sam Rockwell and Taraji P. Henson, seasoned stars, paired perfectly as C.P. Ellis, President of the KKK in Durham, North Carolina and Ann Atwater, a fiery African American civil rights activist; it is 1971 and school integration percolates heatedly in the divisive, racist white community in …

I do not believe in a God of Carnage; but 10 Pakistani men over November 26-29, 2008, assassinated 164 people in the name of Allah, squelching India’s way of life, as they did in the United States, September 11, 2001; director Anthony Maras, without blinders or sensationalism, reenacts and personalizes the calamitous hours of terror endured by guests and staff …

A compelling, scintillating scenario poetically referencing a true tale; Matthias Schoenaerts depicts hardened criminal Roman Coleman, whose rehabilitation rests on the back of an unbroken mustang; both are wild, volatile and caged; filmed with insightful prescience, elucidating neophytes to the massive benefits of Equine Assisted Therapy (EAT) therapy;  a myriad of animals are employed in pet therapy, aiding individuals fighting …

Director James Kent (“Testament of Youth”) intriguingly, hauntingly tells a tale of romance, devastation, deceit between injured, irreparably altered souls; chaos, detritus, beautifully depicted in the “winter of discontent” in postwar Hamburg, Germany; actors Keira Knightley, “Rachel Morgan”, Alexander Skarsgard, “Stefan Lubert” and Jason Clarke, “Colonel Lewis Morgan” imbue their characters with heart-wrenching depth and integrity; the Morgan’s have requisitioned …

Jesse Eisenberg brings his unique brand of freneticism to a film informed by the speed of a hummingbird’s flutter of its wings; technological wizardry based on the prescience of a fiber optic “line” running underground from Kansas to New Jersey, resulting in vast profits, in milliseconds, on the stock market; Jesse is “Vincent Zaleski” a high-frequency trader, along with his  …

Absolutely nothing is as it appears in this “doppelganger” thriller, commencing with six-year-old “Adelaide” (mesmerizing, doe-eyed Madison Curry) wandering into a fun house at a neighborhood carnival; shivering encounter with her clone, leaves her irrevocably altered; jump to present day and adult Adelaide (outstanding, haunting depiction by Lupita Nyong’o) and her husband “Gabe” (naturally naïve, wholesome Winston Duke), daughter “Zora” …

Instantly recognizable, is a woman, searching for an anchor, a “place in the sun”, with pulsating vulnerability, candid openness, she maneuvers the dance floor of a familiar night club; dancing flays the ordinariness of her life: unattached children, valueless job, psychotic neighbor; she possesses the capacity for incalculable love, but no one worthy of its measures; a divorcee, neither gay …

Despite the ongoing conflict revolving around television’s Netflix versus the “Big Screen”, there is no doubt that the positive, unequivocally champions the negative; “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind”, a stellar story, pulsating with vitality and heart, should be required viewing for all ages; directed by, and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, it throbs with genuine, unfeigned sincerity, pungently powerful emotional content …

From time immemorial I have been asked my favorite film; a myriad are housed, cared for, in the elite chambers of my filmic warehouse; always inhabiting the penthouse, never to relinquish its lease, is David O. Selznick’s “Gone With the Wind”; having read Margaret Mitchell’s masterpiece while in high school and seeing it for the first time in the early …