Netflix and Beyond

At one point in this enchanting film,  Mrs.Travers (Emma Thompson) and Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) visit Disneyland and ride a merry-go-round; if that is the only scene you experience, it is sufficient; it captures the dormant child in everyone, the child that never dies, that perpetually resides, comfortably ensconced, in the attic of one’s soul; it is joyful, poignant and …

There are moments in David O. Russell’s “American Hustle” that capture the profundity of film’s power to transport, entertain at the celestial level;  the actors are stratospherically brilliant in their depictions of con- artists, sovereigns of subterfuge, ambitious FBI agents, jealous, disgruntled housewives,  greedy, seedy politicians. Imbued with a myriad of hilarious twists, audiences breathlessly anticipate each tingling, scintillating curve. …

Before reviewing this typical “Bollywood” musical extravaganza, I will address those of you who have requested more substantial fare; there is a plethora of scintillating, intense, inspiring films gushing from major directors in India; it is not all fantasy, super heroes,  laughter, tears and joyful “Oklahoma” endings. In the future I will suggest a more meaty flick, available on Netflix, …

Writer/director Scott Cooper’s flawed but potent thriller about the “Baze” brothers, dealing with substantial issues in Pennsylvania’s steel landscape, 2008.  Christian Bale’s portrayal of “Russell” is sensitive and formidable; Russell has a kind heart and disposition while “Rodney” (solid performance by Casey Affleck) is volatile, most likely suffering from PTSD after serving four stints in Iraq; gambling and fighting are …

Artist Sarah Morris gifts audiences a homage to the city of huge shoulders, bludgeoning winds, architectural and culinary feats, feasts; its awe -inspiring majesty splayed, over sixty-eight minutes of profound, beautiful wonderment; her camera, like a magician’s wand, transforms all that she films; the benign is elevated to the sublime; the pedestrian becomes grand; a stop sign, fractured pavement, stroked …

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Bullets galore infuse this Bollywood tale of vengeance, loyalty, retribution and conflict between untoward government officials, the crime syndicate and vigilantes; never obfuscating or blurring the boundaries between the nefarious and the worthy, “Bullett Raja” is thick with assassinations, assignations, tipping the scales in melodrama and mayhem. Saif Ali Khan, the least charismatic of the unrelated Khan’s is “Raja”; muscled, …

Director Spike Lee’s remake of Park Chan-wook’s Korean, 2003 film of the same title, is shatteringly brutal, ugly and by far the most horrifying, disturbing movie of the year; its bloodthirsty, barbaric scenario is not for those of feint  sensitivities; its meanness continues to haunt, days after viewing. If revenge is best served cold “Oldboy” hovers at the Antarctica level. …

Judi Dench ignites the screen with her performance as “Philomena Lee”; the true story a young, Catholic, Irish girl, who has a son out of wedlock in 1952;  orphaned herself, she is housed in the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Roscrea, Ireland; where her son, at age three, is torn from her,  adopted by an American family. For forty-seven …

After seeing hundreds of Bollywood films; I recognize that they have a monopoly on “flirtation”;  no studio can best them; they have taken the act of flirting, crystallizing it into an art form; a causal glance, a swirl of a sari, a sinuous dance, blossoms into a potent promise of intimacy more compelling, titillating than all the prurient, pulsating, instant …