Netflix and Beyond

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 …

An abusive, egregious example of “poetic license” gone awry, a freefall of intense mediocrity; an embarrassment for two Academy Award winning actors: Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway as one-dimensional, divorced parents of an astrologically gifted son “Patrick” (Rafael Sayegh) who scripts the killing of his wretched stepfather “Frank” (Jason Clarke) from his wizardly computer. Commencing with unsubtle, unsuccessful, plagiaristic references …

For those who saw 2011’s French “The Intouchables”, starring Francois Cluzet, Omar Sy (Cesar Award for Best Actor) and Audrey Fleurot, this rendition, despite fine actors, at best, is an anemic cloning; Bryan Cranston as wealthy quadriplegic, “Phillip” and Kevin Hart as parolee caretaker, “Dell” struggle, and mostly succeed, in capturing the implausible relationship between two disparate men, whose partnership …

Katharine Smyth in “All the Lives We Never Lived” proposes that there is one book for every life, with “the power to reflect and illuminate that life”; Lebanese director/writer/actor, Nadine Labaki’s magnificently tragic “Capernaum” is the nascent, metaphorical film featuring misplaced, disenfranchised refugees; focusing on a twelve-year-old Syrian boy “Zain” (Syrian refugee,  Zain Al Rafeea) undocumented, uneducated, malnourished, suing his …

Director Karyn Kusama’s bleak, intensely depressive template for Nicole Kidman’s dire transformation is only partially successful. Kidman has fearlessly strengthened her reputation as an actor with idiosyncratic characters: “Dead Calm”, a damsel in distress; a homicidal weather forecaster, “To Die For”; “Moulin Rouge”, a courtesan; Academy Award for “The Hours”, playing doomed writer, Virginia Woolf; she’s depicted Grace Kelly, explorer …

This year has voyeuristically regaled audiences with two remarkable films by auteurs who culled from their memories, splayed on the screen, with respectful redolence, their lineage: “Roma” (reviewed 12/9), directed by Alfonso Cuaron (b.1961)  and “Cold War”, a masterpiece directed by Pawel Pawlikowski (b.1957); reverence resonates throughout both movies; filmed in black and white, uncompromised by color, seize and steadfastly …

Having missed the idiosyncratic era of “Laurel & Hardy” director Jon S. Baird’s “Stan & Ollie” biopic stuns with a profound poignancy; stars, John C. Reilly (Oliver Hardy, 1892-1957), Steve Coogan (Stan Laurel, 1890-1965) synchronize, incandescently the comedians hilarious, slapstick routines; from 1927, until their final road trip (“Birds of a Feather”) in 1953/54, their ingenious “schtick”, in over thirty …

A microcosm in a sphere that has ignored, overlooked them; director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s (“After the Storm”) enchanting tale, beautifully scripted, has viewers rooting for the illegal success of the “shoplifters”: “Osamu” (Lily Franky) and “Shota” (Jyo Kairi) effortlessly depict a copacetic team of thieves (their wonderfully warped logic; “if it’s in a store, it belongs to no one”, satisfying the …

Rape. On December 12th, 2012, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student was gang raped by six men and later died of her injuries. In the same year approximately 25,000 rapes occurred, most offenders, known by their victims; there is a lethal disparity between those charged and convicted.  “Simmba”, directed by Rohit Shetty is a valiant slap at the nefarious perpetrators, prosecutors, and …

A night of glitz and glamour (Lady Gaga in an award winning gown), more importantly a night of civility and class; it was as if the egregiousness of this past year was left in the wake of a new era; the presenters and winners, like the strongest steel, emerged from the flames, surviving a year of discontent, stronger, highly polished …