Hollywood

“Life without labor is guilt; labor without art is brutality.” John Ruskin Director Andrew Rossi focuses on the annual New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, fashion extravaganza held on the first Monday in May; Vogue’s Anna Wintour and Met curator Andrew Bolton orchestrate this unique fundraiser. We experience the creation of the massively successful 2015, “China: Through the Looking Glass”. …

This quiet, subtle film based on the life of Chet Baker (1929-1988) is tautly directed and written by Robert Burdreau and profoundly performed by Ethan Hawke; Baker’s warts are glaring and immutable; Hawke’s depiction focuses on his vulnerability, sensitivity and uphill struggle to starve off his burning, perpetual craving for heroine; Baker cannot touch his creative pinnacle without the “dust …

In a ten-day period there has been a blitzkrieg of biopics about singers/musicians born between the years 1923-1929; inspired geniuses, “Apollo” (Greek mythological god of music) shed his potency, enabling them to sparkle above the fray; more than their distinguishing gifts, it is the lure of illicit substances that infuses, defines their commonality: Hank Williams, (1923-1953), “I saw the Light”; …

Harrowing. Haunting. A drama so powerfully filmed and acted it will hover eerily in your consciousness for days after viewing. “Krisha” (sensational portrayal by Krisha Fairchild), a woman in her 60’s perpetually stares in the mirror searching for shadows of her bygone beauty; the camera mercilessly strokes a face ravaged by alcoholism; written and directed by  Trey Edward Shults. Krisha, …

How do average, relatively intelligent parents, cope with a prodigy? Writer/director Jeff Nichols, more than entertaining fantastical journey, featuring an eight-year-old boy, “Alton” (miraculously performed by Jaeden Lieberher) with skill sets beyond the norm and a time schedule predetermined by unknown forces, presciently addresses this dilemma; his father, “Roy” (another stunning portrayal by Michael Shannon)  facing supernatural challenges and “Lucas” …

Director Gavin Hood’s taut, traumatic, contemporary warfare film will ambush viewers from its first frame to its stunning conclusion. Starring Helen Mirren as  UK “Col. Katharine Powell”, who after a six-year hunt has discovered the lair of suicide bombers and key terrorists in Kenya; Drone technology allows the military to detect, spy and target threats to international security; “Eye in …

It is instinctive in horror, war, egregiously violent films that we turn away, shut our eyes or exit the theatre; this is the first time that I experienced such horrific, unmitigated, cringing embarrassment, sickening malaise in a film, that on the surface, is billed as fanciful and funny; in actuality is a pathetic pandering, to thankfully a tiny, elite group. …

Hollywood loves Joel and Ethan Coen, and the more they ridicule, parody, negate the bubble-like milieu, their lovability balloons. “Hail, Caesar” is an anemic, bland slam of the “old”, bygone era where pretense supersedes reality, stars’ foibles are masked, protected by the “studio”. “Eddie Mannix” (based upon an MGM executive of the same name) is stunningly depicted by Josh Brolin; …

Animation has never appealed to me; even as a child I wanted the “real deal”; there are exceptions and “Zootopia” falls into that category;  a welcome hiatus from the limbo of mediocrity film lovers wallow in between the Academy Awards and the summer movie blitz. “Zootopia” is a contemporary, mammal metropolis reminiscent of any “people-populated” city; disparate neighborhoods, anthropomorphic animals, …

Squeamishly, creepily compelling, producer J.J. Adams and director Dan Trachtenberg delve into the realm of “Howard”, a man lusting and prepared for a post-apocalyptic world; his underground technologically secure bunker is stock -piled with food, films, games and all the essential accoutrements for a year of closeted living. “Howard” (a staggering, weird, corpulent John Goodman) has two roommates: “Emmett” (likeable, …