Hollywood

Al Gore lost the Presidency but found an even greater calling; an avocation has blossomed into a vocation; he has been the prime oracle,  alerting the world to the vicissitudes of global warming; winning an Academy Award for 2006’s “An Inconvenient Truth” this sequel cements his place in climate change history; his theories, authenticated, he is eminently confident lecturing to …

Joining the league of women action figures: “Evelyn Salt” (Angelina Jolie); “Kill Bill” (Uma Thurman); “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” (Noomi Rapace/Rooney Mara) and a plethora of others, but none can touch the cool, lethal prowess of “Lorraine Broughton”, an M16 agent seeking justice for a slain cohort in Berlin, 1989, the leak and “list” that led to his murder. Charlize …

Director/writer Gillian Robespierre  (“Obvious Child”) coming of age film in the late 1990’s is a stale rendition of a ubiquitous theme: experimental drug use, gratuitous sexual encounters, scatological humor, irksome giggling. Sisters “Dana” (Jenny Slate) and “Ali” (Abby Quinn’s performance kept me in my seat) discover their father’s “Alan” (John Turturro) affair, perplexity abounds around informing their mother, “Pat”, (Edie …

Kathryn Bigelow’s brazen and brutal depiction of the 1967 riots in Detroit, Michigan focuses on the slaughter at the Algiers Motel on the night of July 26th, 1967. Emotionally pulverizing (many left the theater), this film was overwhelmingly difficult to sit through; a supreme case of; “man’s inhumanity to man”;  “Krauss” (egregiously evil portrayal by Will Poulter) with a Howdy …

There is a dearth of film selections in theatres, so I have turned to Netflix to satisfy my craving for crime, scintillating serial killers and tenacious detectives on Netflix; you have asked, and since management aims to please, here are a few of my favorite television dramas: WITHOUT EXCEPTION, FOYLE’S WAR, WRITTEN BY ANTHONY HOROWITZ, STANDS ISOLATED, AS THE FINEST …

Christopher Nolan’s mesmerizing masterpiece on the vastness of vulnerability; war’s anonymous selection of who shall live and perish; regardless of rank, the process is random, emotionless, arbitrary. Nolan’s brilliant film focuses on a simple, far from extraordinary soldier, whose fate is in the hands of a higher power; “Tommy” (Finn Whitehead) runs through the streets of Dunkirk, searching for the …

Focuses on the 2006 St. Andrews Agreement, a monumental step in the elimination of the bloody strife between The Democratic Unionist Party and the I. R. A./Sinn Fein; Ian Paisley(Timothy Spall) and Martin McGuinness (Colm Meaney) and the fictionalized, imagined version of how these mortal foes became “The Chuckle Brothers” eventually serving as First Minister and Deputy Minister of Northern …

Twenty-three-year-old Ansel Elgort has the balletic acuity of Tommy Tune; the countenance of a youthful Brad Pitt; a talent whose maturity is stunningly developed. He is mesmerizing as a getaway driver for a mélange of mendicants; his hearing was compromised in an automobile accident as a child; ear pods perpetually inserted, his every minute, rhythm is defined by music. Watching …

There is a pivotal scene in this autobiographical film that resonated with profound honesty; a confrontation between a contemporary American Muslim and his traditional parents; redolent with truth, pain; a chasm of misunderstanding exists between the generations, intransigence thrives on both sides. Anyone who has ever loved “outside the box” will relate to its relevance. Of particular charm is that …