Netflix and Beyond

Another banner year in movie-making history; in so many ways it was glorifying, shockingly innovative and uproarious, titillating fun. Countless times I exited smiling, smirking, thinking “I got it”, I wasn’t fooled, but enriched by the ambiguity; directors have unleashed their colossal control, allowing viewers to fill in the blanks. Recently a woman told me that she felt from the …

An intensely orchestrated and depicted feud between two Irish families in the solemn, untarnished, unforgiving landscape of the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland; Shakesperean in scale (Montagues & Capulets) the shepherding world collides catastrophically between the O’Sheas and Keelys; “Michael O’Shea” (Christopher Abbott, silently sensational), seething with a history of remorse and under the tyrannical tutelage of his father “Ray” (crucial …

The commencement of this potent, poignant, profound film is saturated in palatable love; director Walter Salles’s portrait of Rubens Paiva’s (a former Congressman opposed to the military dictatorship in 1960’s Brazil) family, seeped in saccharine, sugary, uxorious affection: Fernanda Torres is stratospherically phenomenal as Rubens wife, Eunice, mother of five and madly, ardently infatuated with her husband; theirs, a love …

Everyone, at one time or another has sensed, without seeing, the presence of an unknown entity or experienced déjà vu, or knowing the phone is about to ring. This instinct is not terrifying, often gratifying, comforting, or the supreme satisfaction that a deceased loved one is still vigilant in protecting one. Directed by Steven Soderberg’s “Presence” is wonderful, innovative and …

Director Mike Leigh has created a paradigm of an individual who makes the act of complaining into an art form; “Pansy” (inappropriately named; Shakespeare’s favorite flower; there is nothing favorable about this woman) depicted with poisonous angst by Marianne Jean-Baptiste; her pulverizing hatred for herself, spews forth from a mouth tainted with abhorrence for mankind; the world is her enemy …

Commencing immediately there is a poetic, romantic poignancy pulsating at its lyrical core; in a myriad of ways reminiscent of the golden years of the Ziegfeld Follies and the 1936 “The Great Ziegfeld”, a time of spectacle, grandeur, an age where a woman was sensationally adored for her beauty, poise and kickable acuity. Those were the days when the dreariest, …

Director/writer Brady Corbet gifts film/art/architecture/ history lovers more than one’s digestive system can masticate in almost four hours; it is an epic masterpiece worthy of intense analyzation; knowledge of the Holocaust and the detritus of its evil, shadowing, stalking survivors like Jewish emigree “Laszlo Toth” (incomparable Adrien Brody); the Bauhaus movement, a revolutionary school, founded in Germany (1919-1933) sought to …

“One Day in September” (1999) won the 2000 Academy Award for the Best Documentary; brilliantly brutal scenario of the horrific slaughter of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. More than the massacre of innocents it dismantled the intrinsic, iconic goal of the Olympics…peace and harmony between ideologies, cultures; cancelling differences, uniting in spirt, sharing the competitions between mutual skills; …

Movie attendees have been feted to a plethora of exciting biopics in recent years: “Bohemian Rapsody” (2018) Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury, “Rocketman” (2019), Taron Egerton, is Elton John; “Judy” (2019) Renne Zellweger’s portrait of Judy Garland; “Elvis” (2022) Austin Butler, reigns as the “King”. Awards galore were showered upon these iconic performances. But in my experience, there has never …

This film, more than any in recent memory, testifies to the miraculous, transformative power of filmmaking and the unswerving tenacity of a writer/director, producer who prevailed in his pursuit to create a beautifully-crafted, viciously realistic political thriller based on the 2022 civil unrest blistering across Iran after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini; she was imprisoned for “inappropriate dress”. Director …