Netflix and Beyond

Certifiably, Isabelle Huppert, excels as a foremost actor of her generation; she has challenged the spectrum in “weird” (“The Piano Teacher”, “Elle”) but must have had a petit mal seizure accepting this half-witted, imbecilic role of a deviate stalker. Director Neil Jordan’s attempt at invigorating a stale theme, never inflates; fizzled initiative leaves viewers, at best bored; a mortal sin, …

For the first time, because of the dynamics of this year’s competition, a consolation prize will be given to Brian B. for going all the way, until he was foiled by “The Green Book”; congratulations on your prescient choices. For the most part, the evening was bland, benign and lacked the cohesiveness of a host; blessedly shorter than previous productions; …

Just received the entrees for Peneflix’s Annual Academy Award Contest; hundreds have an opportunity to win; always buoyed by the regulars! This year was extremely problematic for me; credit phenomenal material, directing and equally grand characterizations; indecisiveness rarely invades my realm but this year’s nominees kept me in foggy, filmic fug. My main conundrums were: 1. Best Female Actress: until …

Once again February has shed prominence on the stars, movies and those behind the scenes. This year is the most difficult, challenging to date, due to the range and diversity of the films and nominees. I feel there should be separate categories for drama and comedy. I also question “Roma” being in “Best Movie” and best “Foreign Film” categories. Every …

Once again February has shed prominence on the stars, movies and those behind the scenes. This year is the most difficult, challenging to date, due to the range and diversity of the films and nominees. I feel there should be separate categories for drama and comedy. I also question “Roma” being in “Best Movie” and best “Foreign Film” categories. Every …

From its inception, this epically grand film (188 minutes) ambushes one’s attention, and in my case, has not relinquished its hold, days after experiencing it; a phenom, magnificent in scope, narrative and vision; hypothetically based on the life of celebrated painter, Gerhard Richter (1932); director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (“The Lives of Others”) tackles the ambiguity of artistic modes, meandering, …

Once again February has shed prominence on the stars, movies and those behind the scenes. This year is the most difficult, challenging to date, due to the range and diversity of the films and nominees. I feel there should be separate categories for drama and comedy. I also question “Roma” being in “Best Movie” and best “Foreign Film” categories. Every …

Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi initially, stealthily seizes one’s attention from the moment you enter his filmic realm; winner of two Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film: “A Separation” (2011 ) and “The Salesman” (2016), he capitalizes, while simultaneously allowing viewers to interpret, the depth of the human condition. What I admire about his filmmaking is the level of intimacy, innate conflict …

Incredible story, splayed across the screen, the entire spectrum of India’s predilections, intransigent traditions, contemporary culture; miraculously, even if you have never graced this remarkable, multi-faceted country, “Gully Boy” brilliantly, presciently, metaphorically, gifts viewers a redolent insight into the real India; director Zoya Akhtar stunningly, visually portrays in 2 1/2 hours what authors Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Jhumpa Lahiri, Vikram …

Norwegian film director, Hans Petter Moland recreates his successful 2014 “In Order of Disappearance”, starring Stellan Skarsgard (“Nils”) with an American version; Liam Neeson (“Nelson”) is a benign snow-plow driver, turned revenge serial killer after his son “Kyle” (Neeson’s real-life son, Michael Redgrave) is mistakenly murdered by egregious drug traffickers; Colorado’s glacial mass and unforgiving, antagonistic, snowbound roads serve as …