Hollywood

“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones”. William Shakespeare’s grasp of the human condition was stunning; Joel Edgerton’s  brilliantly conceived, directed, performed, “The Gift”, is a psychological masterpiece with Shakespearean  overtones. A mid-summer’s thrilling  “gift” to moviegoers. Jason Bateman cements his stardom as “Simon”, a likeable, glib,  upwardly mobile, Security Systems …

Infallible Meryl Streep as “Ricki Randazzo”, a pathetic anachronism, a “flash back” to the 80’s, is cringingly embarrassing as a waning rock- and- roll maven in her 60’s; a hairstyle and wardrobe reminiscent of a biker babe, the American flag tattooed on her back; she returns penniless to Indianapolis from a remote California town, when her daughter “Julie” (Mamie Gummer, …

Compelling, hypnotic simulated incarceration project initiated by Professor Philip Zimbardo in 1971 at Stanford University. Billy Crudup (mesmerizing as Zimbardo)  and the actual Professor were guests on “Charley Rose” recently; the interview piqued my interest, especially the manipulative, addictive powers of role-playing. Zimbardo, a philosophy professor, creates a scenario to test the psychology, mentality of prisoners and guards; after a …

Remarkably Tom Cruise’s celebrity does not transcend the plot of this tightly -wrought thriller; the action is intense,  feasible and expertly executed.  Writer/director Christopher McQuarrie eliminates the glibness, tongue-in-cheek parodies pervasive in contemporary “save mankind” films. Cruise’s portrayal of hero “Ethan Hunt” is sensationally seasoned; with equanimity he hangs from planes, stoically survives excruciating beatings; Houdini-like escapes, actualized with slippery …

On Saturday May 2, 2015, I was one of the millions of lemmings lusting to watch the “fight of the century”: Floyd Mayweather versus Manny Pacquiao; not an aficionado of the sport, but a fan of great boxing films;  grossly naive, felt this competition would have some aspects of “Rocky”, “Raging Bull”, “Cinderella Man’”; lacking gusto, barely-breathtaking, the only surprise …

Woody Allen has accomplished the irrational; no matter the protagonist, either male or female, it is Allen’s persona that is splayed upon the screen; in this, his most recent “autobiographical” scenario, he cloaks himself in the guise of Joaquin Phoenix,  playing a neurotic, psychotic philosophy teacher; Allen’s frustrations spiral into the macabre; all the awards, female conquests, even marrying his …

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) has to be kvelling in the afterlife knowing that over seventy actors have played his iconic detective “Sherlock Holmes”; Ian McKellen, the latest “Mr. Holmes” is stellar as the man in his dotage, loosing his prescient intellectual deductions, struggling against the evaporation of time, grappling to recall and right a thirty-year-old “cold” case, documented by  …

I knew a couple whose roles were similar to “Amy” and  “Aaron”; volatile, electrifying, boozy Amy versus staid, calm, reliable Aaron; their combustible relationship would have been ephemeral if Amy had not righted her ways; they are still together, contented and happy. Writer/actor Amy Schumer stars in this semi-autobiographical tale of her own dysfunctional formative years; her relationships with her …

Disturbing, creepy documentary by director Crystal Moselle, focuses on the Angulo family; seven children imprisoned in their Lower East Side Manhattan apartment, by their paranoid parents; Moselle sees the uniformly dressed brothers (6 boys and a girl) waist-length pony tails, dark suits, sunglasses; curiosity piqued, Moselle engages the boys and the result is one of the strangest urban, gothic tales …

Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix,  Jim Morrison, Jean-Michel Basquiat…..Amy Winehouse (1983-2011), all died at the age of 27; supernovas extinguished by their own manufactured flames. Asif Kapadia’s stunning, brutally honest documentary about the doomed talent resonates to the core with the unadulterated pain of an unprotected, over-exposed ego; Amy was a one-dimensional individual, supremely gifted with a voice to …