Netflix and Beyond

The 2005 novel by Jonathan Safran Foer was a compelling and excellent read. The movie version is immaculately filmed, directed and graced with fine, sensitive performances. Thomas Horn is a genius in depicting “Oscar Schell”, an 11- year -old gifted loner, trying to cope with the loss of his father (Tom Hanks). Then why was I bored, uninterested and capable …

  Many of you have expressed concern over my new FACEBOOK page. There is no need; you will still receive the reviews and be able to comment, as before (“Pina”). I am still wandering, blindly in the labyrinth of the Facebook maze, but through trial and error and the guidance of my muse “Vishal” and son “Robert” the path will …

Dance. Has a “dance” ever changed your life? Were you born to dance? Is it part of your DNA?  Dancing has the power to transcend every feeling: heartbreak, loss, meaningless migraines of minutia. Dance can free one of tireless shackles that dampen spirits, cloud vision, bulldoze barriers clutching, smothering youthful vibrancy. Nothing screams love, passion, unlimited joy more than a …

Dear Subscribers, It is with some trepidation but more glee and excitement that I am plunging into the ubiquitous world of Facebook. Thank your for forwarding Peneflix Movie Reviews to your friends, it is greatly appreciated. In the future keep forwarding the reviews and encourage them to become Subscribers. For all my readers with Facebook accounts please visit by clicking …

In 1991 a friend and I ,without children, went to see this Disney animated fairy tale;  twenty years later my experience and emotional reaction is even more profound. This captivating, irresistible  story seeks to elucidate beyond the epidermis; unpeel the obvious, unearth the “beauty” beneath the “beast” and the “beast’ beneath the “beauty” (“Gaston”). Walt Disney (1901-1966) was a visionary …

Ronan Polanski creates a stunning film based upon Yasmina Reza’s play “God of Carnage”. I loved the play, and even more the movie. “Carnage” conjures mental malodorous images of massive massacres: “Rambo”, “Saving Private Ryan”, “Natural Born Killers”, “Kill Bill”, “Gladiator”; headless, limbless bodies nurturing vast wastelands, landscapes, meant for crop -rotation, relaxation, now just harbingers of death. Here we …

“Brevity is the soul of wit” Polonius said it, I am attempting to practice it. TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY Based on the John Le Carre 1974 novel is a throw- back and excellent adaptation of this spy thriller. If you were intrigued by the novel you will relish this deliberately slow, quiet trek through the dark, murky corridors of subterfuge, …

Meryl Streep is indisputably a titan, a genius in the world of film: it is unlikely that her abilities will be mimicked or duplicated in this century. Margaret Thatcher is also a remarkable woman, who with a will of steel triumphed and altered the political arena in England and the universe; a greengrocer’s daughter whose intelligence, vision and ambition led …

This harsh and provocative title references a brilliant portrayal of a gifted seventeen-year-old student coming to terms with her sexuality. “Alike” (sensational performance by Adepero Oduye) has few doubts about her sexual proclivities; her middle-class family poses the vicissitudes, tumult; shedding pain, confusion and obfuscation on daily life. A fractured marriage, parents in denial: Audrey and Arthur (solid, fine, legitimate …

This riveting film revolving around the atrocities of the Bosnia-Herzegovina war (1992-1995) is irrefutable proof that Angelina Jolie is a powerful “woman of substance”; she tackles and fearlessly adheres to the horrific genocide (euphemistically coined “ethnic cleansing”) perpetrated against the Muslims by Serbian Nationalists. The movie commences with a man and a woman connecting and dancing in a local bar; …