Netflix and Beyond

Challenging to best Russian authors when painting portraits of pain in the deepest, bleakest hues: “Anna Karenina”, “Roskolnikov”, “Prince Myshkin” doomed from conception to  lives of sublime angst; possibly the callous weather, the vast isolation of the Russian landscape, unrelenting, unforgiving tumultuous power of the Barents and Caspian Seas, Volga River; futility of life under the Czars, the diminishment of …

“Claire” is a mess, traumatically scarred, physically and psychologically; we encounter her in a group support session where the suicide of a former member is analyzed; Claire is isolated,  remotely uninterested in recovery;  her attendance defies feasibility . Every second of every frame capitalizes on her agonizing pain; she lies down in vehicles, devours massive, illegally attained drugs, gallons of …

Marion Cotillard is a dazzling, superb Academy Award  (“La Vie En Rose”) winning actress; her every role is infused with overwhelming dignity, deep understanding, pungently powerful interpretation; she partners with  Belgium directors/ brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne in “Two Days, One Night”; “Sandra” a factory worker on sick leave is at the mercy of her co-workers; they have voted for …

PENEFLIX  6th ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARD CONTEST is coming soon! The nominees are located here. It is that time of year, when once again I prove incapable of separating my mind and heart; they are so entwined that an autopsy would prove inconclusive. I vote for the film and nominees that I consider the best in their category. I do not play …

In the first scene we see the “sniper” lying on his belly in war- torn Iraq; his weapon focused on a woman and child; the child is handed a grenade and runs toward a US convoy entering the area; does he kill the child? “American Sniper” is Clint Eastwood’s gloriously stunning tale of Chris Kyle, an ordinary man, keen marksman, …

Alzheimer’s disease does not discriminate when it waves its lethal wand and strikes the gifted, challenged, dedicated, irresponsible; two-thirds of Americans with Alzheimer’s are women. Julianne Moore as Professor “Alice Howland” is luminous, shining as a woman of magnificent formidability in her career, as a wife and  mother; she is fifty years old, diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s; devastating, debilitating; …

1981: Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the 40th President of the United States; 69 days into his Presidency John Hinckley failed in his attempt to assassinate him; Pope John Paul II, also wounded by a crazed assassin; Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, was not given a stay of grace,  was murdered;  Iran Hostage Crisis, concluded; the Aids Virus diagnosed. Violence …

Director Amit Sharma’s “Tevar”, loosely translated “attitude/anger” is monotonous, predictable, cacophonous, intolerably boring; a major conundrum is why this formula is perpetually pervasive in the Bollywood genre; hundreds of films, sundry actors, ubiquitous scenario.  Arjun Kapoor a porky, athletic, rebel -rouser, “Pintu”, comes to the aid of a “damsel in distress’ (myriads of them pulsate on the India screen, waiting …

A gloomy, sordid tale based on the 2009 Thomas Pynchon novel. The action takes place in California, 1970; black times warped by the Vietnam War, rampant drug use, pervasive, cynical disillusionment of the young; freedom, release found in evading the draft, sleeping on beaches; life anesthetized; reality frozen by illegal substances; era of “hippies”, Charles Manson, Richard Nixon and “Larry …

Mark Walberg gives a stultifying, robotic performance as “Jim Bennett” a gambler with a mythic quest to self-destruct. Unlike James Caan in director Karel Reisz’s 1974, poignant and beautiful portrait of a man incapable of controlling his demonic urges, Walberg’s character, directed by Rupert Wyatt, is always in control; crassly, cavalierly dispensing his mother’s “grace” money; flaunts, and taunts his …