Netflix and Beyond

“BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER” Overcoming palpable hesitancy, not imagining a “Black Panther” without the epochal Chadwick Boseman (1976-2020), but at the insistence of my youngest and astronomically smart friend, I went; it was every bit as superlative as described and redolently reverential to the deceased actor. Pungently powerful as the technical effects, cinematography, acting acuity, the underlying message of strength …

CAUSEWAY (Apple TV) Jennifer Lawrence is certifiably a grand actor; her skill reverberates and defines to perfection her every characterization: “Ree Dolly” (“Winter’s Bone”), “Katniss Everdeen” (“The Hunger Games”, Trilogy), “Tiffany” (“Silver Linings Playbook”), the list exponentially expands as she advances to her pinnacle. In tandem with director Lila Neugebauer, Lawrence imbues recovering soldier “Lindsay” (wounded in an explosion in …

Writer Erich Maria Remarque’s (1898-1970) iconic novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” (1929) film depiction is positively outstanding, compellingly watchable and one of the finest productions on television today; riveting to the point of exhaustion, German director Edward Berger vivisects the naivety of teenagers rallying around the “flag”, ignorant of the hideousness of the battleground; and the immediate, crushing …

Two outstanding Academy Award winners (Jessica Chastine, Eddie Redmayne) with exhaustive efforts could not spur viewers to the level of interest, that on paper, should have soddened our attention for its entirety. The good nurse, Amy Loughren (Chastine) emotionally, psychologically, physically must come to terms with the evil embedded in the bad nurse, Charlie Cullen (Redmayne); both actors immerse their …

With trepidation I watched, what initially was a prime example of pure madness, but morphed into a “coming of age” tale never before actualized, nor “ever” will be repeated.  Who, even in an inebriated state, would decide to bring his buddies, serving in the Vietnam War (approximately 1965-1975) a beer, (Pabst Blue Ribbon)? Well, John “Chickie” Donohue (1941-) had the …

Tragically titillating expose on the minimal life of Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean Mortenson, (1926-1962) directed by Andrew Dominik based on Joyce Carol Oats 2000 fictionalized version of her doomed ephemerality. Unfortunately, there are no surprising insights, just predictable salaciousness: a menage trois (Edward G. Robinson Jr. (Evan Williams) and Charlie Chaplin, Jr. (Xavier Samuel); an abusive thug, Jo DiMaggio (Bobby …

THE PATIENT (Hulu) Abashedly, a friend and I walked out of 2005’s “40-Year-Old Virgin” with no regrets, never revisited it; also ignored “The Office”; it wasn’t until “Foxcatcher” (2014) followed by “The Big Short” (2015) and “Beautiful Boy” (2018) that I awakened to the stimulating fact that Steve Carell was so much more than a funny man; incubating beneath a …

“BULLET TRAIN” (in theatres) It has been a rather thin, squishy summer of film; a myriad of mediocrity unworthy of brain waves, exceptions: “Top Gun”, “Official Competition”, “Hallelujah”, “Vengeance” and the recently reviewed “The Good Boss”. To shun ennui, I visited “Bullet Train” (Brad Pitt the primary draw); superciliousness on steroids but for some inexplainable rationale I found myself enjoying, …

“ORPHAN: FIRST KILL” (streaming & in theatres) Isabelle Fuhrman gives a sensationally eerie depiction of a serial killer afflicted with Highlander Syndrome (hypopituitarism, stunted physical growth); she looks twelve but is thirty-one; an orphan from Estonia who poses as an American child, abducted years ago; Julia Stiles, “Tricia” the despondent mother, is equal to the challenge of a newfound daughter. …

Last Sunday’s New York Times’s extensive article on writer/director Michael Mann, concentrating on his upcoming movie “Heat 2”, piqued my interest in a film I had never seen; a film of exceptional power, staggering achievement, mesmerizingly dazzling; “Heat” should be seen by anyone who wallows willingly in film’s “absolute beauty, visual joy and dreamlike sensibility”. “Heat” is a crime tale …