Netflix and Beyond

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 …

Embarrassingly, I have never seen “Saturday Night Live”, obviously on a sojourn in an alternate universe; regardless, I was aware of the goddess of the comedic realm, Gilda Radner (1946-1989) and the girth of her reputation has continued to expand since her untimely passing. Director Lisa Dapolito culls archival footage from the star’s childhood, interviews with her comical contemporaries, and …

The year 2018 saw the rise of two remarkable women, recognized by gallerists for their innovative, painting acuity; both in their seventies, having excelled in alternate professions, have reinvented themselves and are soaring, proving that age should not be a factor in excavating one’s dormant sensibilities, disciplines. Watching Felicity Jones, donning the early years of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-), and …

A title referencing malfeasance, iniquity, corruption and moral depravity leaves no question in the viewer’s mind as to writer/director Adam McKay’s opinion of Vice President Dick Cheney (2001-2009); flashbacks of the most horrific period in American history are scalded in our memories and uncomfortable to revisit; to be in a position of power on September 11, 2001 was not enviable …

There is a reverence that saturates every blissful moment of this remarkably fine film, based on James Baldwin’s 1974 novel; Beale Street; a metaphor, microcosm for an African American’s unique experience: New Orleans, Chicago, New York, lives mimic each other. Writer/director Barry Jenkins, (“Moonlight”) true to Baldwin’s poetic tale but infused with a heart defined by the twenty-first century; here …

Choosing between two Bollywood blockbusters: “Zero”, Shah Rukh Khan playing a mini-version of himself or “K.G.F: Chapter 1”, my vote for the latter resulted in over 2 1/2 hours of bombastic, cacophonous, tumultuous entertainment. Writer/director Prashanth Neel’s tale of oppression commences in the early 1980’s; cutting to the chase with a limited script, “Rocky” champions the oppressed, inciting their rebellion …

This film is a conundrum, a therapeutic fantasy, a tribute to diminished artist, Mark Hogancamp, a talented illustrator, with a woman’s shoe fetish, beaten, so viciously, he now uses his camera to record his manufactured milieu where “evil” is annihilated by female warriors; his dolls, resembling kind women in his life, combatants who save him from Nazi villains (stand-ins for …

There will be those enchanted, charmed, joyously entertained: neophytes, who have never seen or revisited  the 1964 version, or have forgotten the magical “Banks” family and their ethereally, spell-binding Nanny, “Mary Poppins”, (inimitable Academy Award winning performance by Julie Andrews), her logical effervescence, intuitive genius in captivating her wards; here was a Mary Poppins, sprinkled in fairy dust, unparalleled in …

Commencing with a teenager, massacring his contemporaries, resulting in the burgeoning career of a surviving victim, “Vox Lux” mimics real and fictional lives of those whose meteoric rise to lionization is fueled by drugs, alcohol and their own manufactured megalomania; this is a tiresome topic that has engulfed filmgoers, especially in 2018. “A Star is Born”, in its fourth avatar, …

Rarely will you see a mother/son relationship, so profoundly depicted, magnificently perfected, defined by the acting acuity of thespians Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges (“Ben and Holly Burns”); their palatable, heart-wrenching love is the core of this exceedingly real scenario; its fictional tale, resonates as truth in today’s drug- infested environment; millions of families have been annihilated by the egregious …