Netflix and Beyond

Mahatma Gandhi soulfully believed “the future of India lies in its villages”, invisible in “Photograph”, director Ritesh Batra (“Lunchbox”) achingly, hauntingly, throughout the film, references the poignancy, simplicity, pains, banes of rural existence; yearly, millions of young men and women flood major Indian cities, live in squalor, sending their negligible rupees back to their bereft families. “Rafi” (sublimely subtle, Nawazuddin …

Honesty compels me to confess that I never sunk my literary molars into the realm of J.R.R.Tolkien’s (1892-1973) “The Hobbit” (1937) nor “The Lord of the Rings” (1954-55) but wallowed in mesmerizing captivation throughout Peter Jackson’s trilogy of these fantastical characters and places that sprung from the imaginative fecundity of one man; oh, to stroll clandestinely through the closets, corridors …

Director Zhang Yimou (“House of Flying Daggers”, “The Great Wall”) in his latest film “Shadow”, sheds upon viewers a magnificent epic of vintage Chinese lore: warring factions, recalcitrant, narcissistic leaders, romance, subterfuge, above all pristinely, poetically choreographed; sculpted mobility transcends the graphic violence; there is grandeur and elegance in the pathos; this is filmmaking at its peak; Yimou’s masterful vision …

Four seasons worthy of “Beneficial Binging”; “Line of Duty” is a BBC television series that has seared the imaginations of all who have ventured into its corridors of crime, circling around “bent” coppers and their manipulation of police procedures; beyond thrilling, writer Jed Mercurio, weaves a network of nefarious deeds with immaculate intelligence and scrupulous attention to detail, confounding those …

Director Jonathan Levine, writers Liz Hannah, Dan Sterling, but pivotally, stars Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen are grounds for visiting “Long Shot”; an unlikely duo, a stupefying example of “opposites bonding”; initially incomprehensible, with progression, systematically comprehensible; Secretary of State, “Charlotte Field” (Theron) anticipating a run for the Presidency hires “Fred Flarsky” (Rogen) a freelance writer, to pepper her speeches …

  Director/actor Ralph Fiennes, with intelligence and empathy, brings to fruition Julie Kavanagh’s biography “Rudolf Nureyev: The Life”; Fiennes studies Russian, adding legitimacy to his role as Pushkin, Nureyev’s ballet instructor, and neophyte Oleg Ivenko is vastly credible as iconic Rudi, a twenty-three-year-old, imbibing in the “garden of earthly delights” in Paris, 1961. The conundrum lies in Rudolf Nureyev’s inimitable, …

“Marveldom” scholarship is not required to appreciate the marvelous, metaphorical message pulsating at the epicenter of this stunningly fine and beautifully filmed morality movie. Directors Anthony and Joe Russo, excavate the core of Biblical, Talmudic, Vedic and Qur’anic texts, battles between righteousness and infamy; sacrificing one’s life for a greater good; passionately needing icons to venerate: those immune to the …

Ambition and over simplification stymied what should have been a legitimate political thriller; that being stated director Trevor Nunn and an inimitable cast, lend viability to the true story of a remarkably brilliant woman (Joan Stanley) who helped with the development of the atomic bomb, shared its secrets with the Russians, loved a misguided idealist (Leo), married a professor (Max) …

Director Abhishek Varman’s ravishing epic, highlighting a triangular love affair in Lahore, Pakistan before the 1947 partition from India, scores with its whimsically wonderful cinematography, elaborate, exultant chorography and staggeringly sensational performances: Varun Dhawan, “Zafar” with well-oiled, pneumatic pectorals, is the illegitimate offspring (Kalank) of a Muslim/Hindu assignation who woos “Roop” (naively, pungently sensitive Alia Bhatt) in an arranged marriage …

Regardless of your creed, or lack thereof, there are documented incidents, where science bows out, shrugs its shoulders and kneels to a higher power; “Breakthrough” based on the book “The Impossible” by Joyce Smith is such an event;  John (imposing performance by Marcel Ruiz) the fourteen-year-old, adopted son, of Joyce and Brian Smith (Josh Lucas) falls into a frozen lake …