Netflix and Beyond

This candidly remarkable film is not for everyone, but more than any movie in recent memory, deals honestly with the staggeringly powerful tentacles of addiction; a hunger that imprisons the body and more pivotally the mind. “Anders” is granted a day in Oslo after ten months in rehabilitation; he is clean but terrified of unshackled freedom, the bane, angst of …

The “cowboy” or western genre has never ranked too high on my scale of top themes; I recognize and respect the John Wayne/Gary Cooper cult; loved the “Ballad of High Noon” more than the plot. Although not a Western in the true sense (minimal horses),  Australian director John Hillcoat and screenwriter Nick Cave (not to be confused with the artist) …

David Cronenberg has made some pivotally powerful films (“Eastern Promises”, “History of Violence”) but “Cosmopolis” does not flirt or touch the legitimacy of his past movies. A dark, senseless “awakening” in a materialistic, capitalistic “cosmos”; billionaire “Eric Packer” spends a day in a white stretch limousine (technologically equipped), visited by staff, girlfriends, financial advisers, even his doctor; while watching his …

In 1994, San Antonio, Texas 13-year-old Nicholas Barclay disappears, vanishes without a trace; he is blond, blue-eyed, incorrigible, loveably irritating, a bane to his mother and older brother; his sister Carey Gibson, for years, grieves and searches, for her younger, painfully- missed sibling. Almost three and a half years later he surfaces in Linares, Spain. “The Imposter” is an excellent …

On a likeable scale from one to ten (ten being the most positive) where do bicycle messengers rank? They don’t! Without exception, as a group they are detested, cursed, sometimes killed but never pitied, admired or respected. They are universally iconoclastic: a plague, on urban society;  “rules of the road” do not apply to them, stop lights anathema, pedestrians annoyances, …

This awful flick is more a curse than “ legacy”;  disjointed, disengaging, disenfranchised from previous “Bourne” sagas starring Matt Damen; unfathomable crime using “ Bourne”  nomenclature to lure advocates of the now deceased Bourne genre, to this facile, sophomoric, anemic replacement. “The Bourne Legacy” pathetically edited, is a compilation of “running” sequences; Jeremy Renner (a fine actor, wasted in this …

Superb, stunning performances cement the viewer’s attention for the entirety of this quasi-nonfictional portrait of three, talented African American sisters, striving for notoriety in the late 1960’s, Detroit, Michigan. Loosely based upon “The Supremes” . With the formation of “Motown Records” in 1959, African Americans initiated their financial destiny;  Barry Gordy, Jr. founder,  is pivotal in paving the yellow-brick- path …

ALL COMMENTS MADE ON PENEFLIX WILL BE ANSWERED ON THE SITE. THANK YOU AND KEEP THEM COMING. This is a classic scenario of “having your cake and eating it too”; “Celeste” and “Jesse” have loved, been in love, their entire lives; they interpret each others thoughts, mimic foreign accents with perfect pitch; are the closest of comrades,  play blissfully together;  …

Do anything to avoid this desultory, despondent, dreary, dreadful, demeaning portrait of a French family visiting their daughter/sister living in New York. There is not an ounce of chemistry between Julie Delpy and Chris Rock. Shamed that I did not exit after fifteen minutes of this dull, dumb, dismal, despicable drivel. NO STARS. For Now……..Peneflix

Even as a child I did not care for animation, but with a few recent films my conversion has been accelerating: “Wall -E” is one of my favorite movies of all time; and earlier this summer “Brave” struck and ignited my imagination: I decided with little trepidation to see “ParaNorman”. “Norman” , reminiscent of “The Sixth Sense” sees dead people; …