Hollywood

In 1972, Beirut, Lebanon (one of the oldest civilizations in the world), a magnificent city referred to as the “Paris of the East”, lives U.S. diplomat “Mason Skiles” (Jon Hamm) his wife “Nadia” (Leila Bekhit) and their ward “Karim” (Yoav Sadian Rosenberg), a thirteen-year-old Palestinian refugee; into a benign, multi-cultural cocktail party, a terrorist group shatters, irrevocably, Mason’s harmonious lifestyle. …

This is not a good film; it binges on “poetic license”, sensationally portraying Senator Edward Kennedy (1932-2009) as a moronic megalomaniac; July 18, 1969, sounded the death knoll for Kennedy’s quest for the Presidency but did not destroy the aura of royalty, entitlement that informs his birthright; Kennedy remained senator of Massachusetts until his death. Regardless of his achievements, the …

Mesmerizing, hypnotic, powerful, original scenario, classified in the “horror” genre; director/writer/actor John Krasinski’s ingenuous portrait of survival, consummate love and strength, despite plummeting odds, is a tableaux of unparalleled, pervasive torture and fortitude. The Abbott family, soundlessly scavenges for sustenance in a desolate grocery store; communicating by signing, barefoot, filthy, their youngest of three children covets a toy airplane. Within …

Like houses of worship, museums are vessels of sanctification; as a child, walking through their hallowed halls, walls dancing with portraits of saints and sinners, beckoned by monumental angels, overcome with reverence, I thought this is where god, man and paint are one; creativity consecrated, empowered, only a few capable of envisioning, actualizing the mighty, sanctified and damned. As life …

Clair Foy rose to prominence as the actor who for two seasons starred as the young Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix’s “The Crown”; her portrayal of a vulnerable monarch, fervently in love with her husband, was a tender concoction of human and royal pedigree; torn between familial and monarchial duties, the “Crown” edged out the personal. It was a test …

This is not a film for the occasional movie-goer; it is an audacious, four-letter infused (“like”) tale of a teenage girl who performs sexual favors to earn funds to bail her errant father out of jail; she blackmails her “victims” by having her friends video the assignation. Appealing? Absolutely not, with the exception of Zoey Deutch’s performance as protagonist, seventeen-year-old …

Highly anticipated, my expectations were painfully, slowly slaughtered as the film progressed; director Armando Iannucci’s dark parody, ironically and at times scathingly sharp, depicts the mendacious scavengers hovering around the stricken Stalin (Adrian Mcloughlin) in 1953. His greedy sycophants, acted by Steve Buscemi (Nikita Khrushchev, an unrealistic leap of faith required in his casting, not to disparage Buscemi’s impeccable comedic …

By far the most refreshing, richly satisfying film of 2018; a coming of age movie, stunning in its originality, performed to perfection by a corps of prodigious young actors; prescient directing by Greg Berlanti and a unique, intelligent screenplay by Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker. Its poignant warmth, naturalness, genuineness saturates every scene, resonates with every viewer. I loved “Simon …

From June 27 to July 4th, 1976, a hijacked Air France plane carrying 248 passengers was detained in Entebbe, Uganda, sanctioned by its leader Idi Amin; pro-Palestinian terrorists, eventually released all non-Israeli hostages; Israel initiated what was one of the most dramatic, sensational rescue missions in history. Directed by Jose Padilha, “7 Days in Entebbe” is a “starless” bastardized, diminished, …

Made the agenda of 2017’s Film Festivals’ highlights; it is a creepily compelling, unnerving tale starring two phenomenal ingénue actors (Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke) as  “Lily” and “Amanda” dames of privilege in the “Daisy Buchanan” league;  Lily, lazily living with her mother and stepfather, yearning for admission to an elite college is reunited, after years of non-communication, with a …