Hollywood

The Rocky Balboa franchise commenced in 1976; Sylvester Stallone referenced the legendary boxer Chuck Wepner (1939-) who lost to Muhammad Ali in a 1975 heavyweight championship fight. Rocky lost to “Apollo Creed” (Carl Weathers) by default at the conclusion of the first of 6 “Rocky” films; it’s the longstanding and outstanding sport franchise in filmdom.  “Creed III” is sharply defined, …

For the first time in eons, I had the satisfaction of picking a few of the winners; totally unfamiliar sensation, but one I hope to replicate in the future. The evening in general was delightfully bland and benign; no major faux pas, unless you count the woman with a huge white collar, blocking the view of rows behind her or …

Never, have I been so challenged in picking my “winners”; it was a year of wonderment and wallowing wholeheartedly in a myriad of futuristic realms, historical accuracies, biographical revelations and haunted, hunted psychological evaluations, resulting in delightful, delicious confusion. With the exception of “Avatar: The Way of Water” (“Finding Nemo” is a more satisfying aquatic experience), every film touched a …

Hugh Jackman, (“Peter”) is a worthwhile reason to view “The Son”; struggling from a major iron deficiency, an anemic plot, whose nucleus is a wrestling, divorced father, unequipped to aid a chronically, cumbrous, depressed teenager, “Nicholas” (Zen McGrath); a prequel to “The Father” erases all the sublimity, formability invested in a film anchored by Anthony Hopkins (his role in “The …

Hermine Beck (1923-2022) was a formidable woman who “sucked the marrow out of life” and graced its presence for almost a hundred years; I met her in Kolkata, India in 2004 and knew karmically that this was the “beginning of a beautiful friendship”, it was, until its finality. Hermine introduced me to “The Power Broker” by Robert Caro (1935-) a …

Fredrik Backman’s 2012 novel “A Man Called Ove” translates prodigiously in director Marc Forster’s version of a charismatic curmudgeon, circumstantially forced to keep living after the death of his wife; Tom Hanks (in tandem with his son Truman Hanks, as an aged and youthful “Otto”) dazzles as a man at the precipice of despair, aching only to be united with …

Bill Nighy is overwhelming, stratospheric, instinctively perceptive in his role as “Mr. Williams”, based on the film “Ikiru” by Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa (“Seven Samurai”); here is a brilliant remake of a 1952 classic. No longer Japan, but London, where a robotic bureaucrat, Mr. Williams, learns of his imminent death and shockingly realizes he has never lived; impeccably imbued with …

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) and his supernaturally bleak imagination translated into thrilling, titillating prose and poetry, has long held an undeniable fascination, compellingly haunting appeal: “Lenore”, “Annabelle Lee” their absence festers at the heart of Poe’s sensibilities, he mourningly acclaims the expiration of beauty; “the pale blue eye” of the purest ingenue, denied maturity. “The death of a beautiful woman …

WOMEN TALKING The power of intelligence resonating at the core of this prodigious film is astonishing; at certain points, wishing to “pause”, “rewind”, and “replay”, cementing a vocabulary of deducted reasoning, purely processed, through the words of women, sorely abused, illiterate, questioning the dictates of a religion that demands “forgiveness” for egregious behavior, perpetrated by a male population, justified in …

WHITNEY HOUSTON: I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY (IN THEATRES) Naomi Ackie (Houston), Stanley Tucci (Clive Davis, record producer) and Ashton Sanders (husband, Bobby Brown) cannot salvage, what should have been a dynamic biopic, from mediocrity. Her blistering rise, from the age of nineteen to her tragic demise at forty-eight, was infused with impending gloom: nasty parenting, drug enabling husband, doomed …