Netflix and Beyond

Elvis Presley (1935-1977) torpedoed the music genre with the same iconoclasm  Andy Warhol (1928-1987) dealt to the art world, blasting the suited-singers, framed paintings, eliminating boundaries, bulldozing the norm and excavating a future never envisioned. Director Baz Luhrmann (“The Great Gatsby”) with his lavishly excessive style unveils the genius of a young white boy saturated in gospel, jazz, rhythm-and-blues, a …

“PEAKY BLINDERS” 6TH SEASON   NETFLIX In my estimation this season tops the others in writing, intense characterization and the effects of moral turpitude; Cillian Murphy, redolently ripe as “Tommy Shelby” sears as a man plagued by his misdeeds, its consequences, and religious retribution; farfetched, but reeks of legitimacy and the power of the mind to transcend reality. FOUR STARS!!!! …

Doris Kearns Goodwin is the quintessential historian; with remarkable intelligence, insight and ultimate comprehension, she masters the lives, initiatives, goals, achievements of all her subjects: Abraham Lincoln (“Team of Rivals”), Franklin Roosevelt (& Eleanor)(“No Ordinary Time”) Lyndon Johnson (“And the American Dream”); it is the “Bully Pulpit”, focusing on Theordore Roosevelt (1858-1919) and his extraordinary life that Goodwin documents in …

As a lifelong Tom Cruise fan, (“Risky Business” and “Born on the Fourth of July” sealed my devotion) I went full throttle, excited to the max, without trepidation to the first showing of “Top Gun: Maverick”; happily, my expectations were not only met, but wildly surpassed. I loved the film from the onset; it is magnificent and must be experienced in the theatre. Jeffrey …

Double your pleasure, comfortably, with two stunners now watchable on Netflix.  “Operation Mincemeat” is a captivating, engrossing enactment of a British 1943 mission of deception, a key to eventually besting the Germans in WWII; director John Madden (“Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”, “Shakespeare in Love”, “Miss Sloane”) with actors Colin Firth, Kelly Macdonald, Matthew Macfadyen portray an intensely intelligent, fiercely detailed …

Having never visited the popular series of the inimitable Crawley family, I judge the films as entities totally without preconceived intimacy of the characters; possibly unfair, but films take precedence above and beyond the world of television (which I also admire). I found 2019’s “Downton Abbey” rather abysmal, apart from Maggie Smith as matriarch “Violet Crawley”; since her riveting Academy …

Foreign films have always held a deep-seated fascination for me; they demand a high level of concentration because of the subtitles and the edifying exposure to the intricacies of filmmakers from variant cultures; their appeal is enormously gratifying. Director Eskil Vogt’s (“The Worst Person in the World”) creepily brilliant tale of children, one with psychokinesis, determining a milieu devoid of …

Having read Mario Puzo’s Godfather trilogy, viewed the films, but it was not until I visited “The Offer” that I became aware of the intricacies, fluctuations, political intrigue informing the epic production (winner of three Academy Awards, including Best Picture); “The Offer” is my top pick in today’s screening milieu; starring Miles Teller (“Whiplash”) as producer Al Ruddy (garnished an …

“VORTEX”  Dedicated “To all those whose brains will decompose before their hearts”; directed by Gasper Noe, “Vortex”, filmed as a diptych, a metaphor for the bifurcation of two lives, once entwined, now irrevocably fractured by age and its devastating vicissitudes; a husband and wife, “Liu” and “Elle” (incomparable Dario Argento and Francoise Lebrun) navigating the once familiar, now foreign, unknown …

Robust Bollywood actor Ajay Devgn owns “Runway 34”, as director, producer and star he controls, with an iron fist, the tightly wrought scenario; based loosely on the Jet Airways Doha to Kochi flight 9w 555 on August 18th, 2015; as pilot “Captain Vikrant Khanna”, blessed with an eidetic memory, he arrogantly doffs the rules followed by lesser mortals; Devgn’s implacably …