Netflix and Beyond

We have limitless choices on our devices; what in the past was a delicious dilemma, now, can result in traumatic options (some we must pay for). I have toughened my resolve; if not aroused in 15 minutes, switch films, regardless of the expense. Here Peneflix gifts those with limited patience and in need of a film distraction ASAP. First runs …

These were not the films that I had originally planned to review but with universal, raging antisemitism, viciously mushrooming, proliferating since October 7, 2023, where Israel was held accountable for the slaying of innocents by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups and license was granted, afforded to those whose hidden hatred of Jews was now stripped bare, celebrated, applauded, exploding, …

Director Pablo Larrain’s third tribute to a feminine icon: “Jackie” 2016, starring Natalie Portman; “Spencer” 2021, gloomy actor, Kristin Stewart and the final film of the trilogy, “Maria” featuring the preeminent Diva, operatic legend, Maria Callas depicted by Angelina Jolie. In essence I found the trinity lacking in pungency, power and engrossment. Possibly Larrain’s awe of the protagonists clouded his …

An oxymoronic title is the first hint of what is to come, and it plays out deliciously in Christie/Holmes style; lavish wedding on a sanctioned estate goes awry in the wee hours of the wedding day; beautiful, dead guest “Merritt Monaco”, (luscious Meghann Fahy) surfaces on the Nantucket shore of an apparent drowning/suicide. Estate owners “Greer Garrison Winbury”, a renowned …

Sorrowful, adulterated talents of Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway in this totally irrational scenario of a mother’s devotion and love. Directed by Benoit Delhomme, based on the novel by Barbara Abel; it is a cross between fantasy and horror, and fails in both arenas. Taking place in the early 1960’s when women are stretching the boundaries between professionalism and motherhood; …

Recommended by my star-powered, producer nephew, Will Anderson, I lustily viewed with vast anticipation; directed by trans and non-binary filmmaker, Jane Schoenbrun I found it compelling, confounding but incomprehensible, I reached out to him for enlightenment; his perceptions, salient and introspective are worthy of quoting in entirety: It really moved me in a strange way. And I think you may …

Over the weekend I binged watched a trio of Ripley movies  (skipping “Ripley’s Game” and “Ripley Under the Ground”) that novelist Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995) wrote and lionized “Tom Ripley” a pernicious psychotic with a pleasant façade and amoral core. Commencing with Netflix’s “Ripley” starring Andrew Scott (“All of Us Strangers”), an eight- episode, compelling study of a man who looks …

Michael Fassbender depicts a nameless assassin in David Fincher’s portrait of a man legitimizing his job as a soulless, “blinkless”, philosophical killer; basically, narrating his process and the skill, diligence, conditioned body and mind required of his proficiency; an avowed nihilist but not above quoting Christ, his faux sanctimoniousness cannot cleanse his bloody deeds. His mantra, redundantly pervasive is focused …

“THE HOLDOVERS”            IN THEATRES Poignantly predictable, two contradictory characters (“Professor Paul Hunham”, Paul Giamatti, and student “Angus”, Dominick Sessa), lock horns over a Christmas holiday at a boy’s boarding school; it is 1970 and director Alexander Payne remains true to the era; Giamatti’s curmudgeonly, warm and wonderful performance as a brilliant, flawed ancient civilizations teacher, …

Director Kitty Green gifts viewers one of the most innovative, surprising films of the year. Two young Canadians “Hannah” (Julia Garner) and “Liv” (Jessica Henwick) find themselves running out of funds while experiencing the sights, seductiveness of the only country in the world that covers an entire continent, Australia; the daunting vastness minimizes its inhabitants especially in the parched outback …