Netflix and Beyond

Fellow Movie Lovers So many of have asked for my Oscar predictions; always one to please, know I vote from the mind, not the heart. I do not award an Oscar because the actor has been nominated a myriad of times and never acknowledged, or that their days on the planet are numbered. With a clean slate every year, my …

Fellow Movie Lovers MY NAME IS KHAN After a nine day hiatus my withdrawal symptoms raging, I paid homage to my addiction by seeing three movies in two days…….not my record but impressive, considering all the unread mail. The first was From Paris With Love, mindlessly entertaining, if you are a John Travolta fan, which I am. You will not …

Fellow Movie Lovers THE LAST STATION With great expectations I have been desperately yearning for the opening of this film and joyously I can report that my desires were not only requited but surpassed my wildest anticipations!!!!!!! It is a tour de force at every level. Directed by Michael Hoffman based on the biographical 1990 novel by Jay Parini, it …

Fellow Movie Lovers NORTH FACE (NORDWAND)………………………Soon to be released. Do not miss this exhilarating, enervating, “fasten the seat belt” German film! It revolves around mountain climbers and their quest to conquer the unfathomable summit of the Eiger Mountain (in the Bernese Alps, Switzerland, 13.025 feet). This true saga occurs in July of 1936, three years into the diabolical reign of …

Fellow Movie Lovers EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES Over thirty years ago a close friend of mine was diagnosed with scleroderma (a debilitating connective tissue disease that involves changes in the skin, blood vessels, muscles and internal organs); she was given approximately six years to live; the younger of her two sons was six months old. As I watched this, not extraordinary, but …

Fellow Movie Lovers THE LOVELY BONES Those of you who read Alice Sebold’s 2002 novel of the same name will find this well-acted but tedious film a test of one’s concentrative powers. The genius of Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings and District 9) was on a directorial hiatus. The mundane script is rescued or resuscitated by Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) …

Fellow Movie Lovers EMMA JANE AUSTEN’S MASTERPIECE PREMIERS SUNDAY JANUARY 24TH ON PBS It was amazingly serendipitous when I arrived home from a gluttonous culture junket to New York City, where I had just seen the Jane Austen Manuscript Exhibit (Morgan Library), to find the CD of this remarkable mini series from a generous friend! I spent a delicious afternoon …

Fellow Movie Lovers Soon to be released: FISH TANK Andrea Arnold (Oscar winning creator of Wasp, 2004) delivers a knock out punch with this rough, raw and brutally honest film, attracting and repulsing, simultaneously. Mia (freshly discovered, Katie Jarvis) is fifteen, no longer in school, disenfranchised from, and hater of society; a pure misanthrope. Her only escape a pathetic imitation …

Fellow Movie Lovers THE WHITE RIBBON This sinister but compelling film by Michael Haneke is a study of the inhabitants of a small German town over a year’s time, 1913-14. A town so isolated or encapsulated that life revolves around farming, procreating and prayer; its existence rests in the hands of the powerful but just landlord, the Baron. His world …

Fellow Movie Lovers THE LOSS OF THE TEARDROP DIAMOND One could never doubt the prolific and prodigious talents of Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) and this lesser known work exemplifies the breath taking depth of his skill. He used as fodder for most of his works the dysfunctional family he was straddled with: alcoholism and madness were prime elements and he magically …