Netflix and Beyond

English director/artist/screenwriter Steve McQueen first registered on my artistic radar screen in 1996 when the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago featured his short film “Five Easy Pieces”; his meteoric rise has been a quintessential example of the “cream rising to the top”; Museums have lionized him: The Art Institute of Chicago featured a swimmingly sensational exhibit in 2012; winner …

Marie Colvin’s (1956-2012) remarkable life as a foreign correspondent is depicted with stunning refinement by Rosamund Pike. A Yale graduate, Marie worked for the London Sunday Times from 1985 until her death in 2012. “A Private War” devoid of romanticism, depicts a woman of vast intelligence, fearlessly intrepid, treading in theatres of war, where only a few dared to stride. …

Bollywood Goliath, Aamir Khan, stars in this 3-hour, monolithic saga, revolving around English/Indian travails in the late eighteenth, early nineteenth centuries; costing 200 crores (topping 2 billion dollars) the film is a total dud, and the worst movie Khan has ever made; his character “Firangi” weakly reminiscent of Johnny Depp’s in “Pirates of the Caribbean” is a conniving, duplicitous buffoon; …

Earlier this year we were treated to an enchanting story of a conflicted seventeen-year-old boy struggling to inform his family that he is gay; “Love, Simon” tempered the angst, placating, instead of challenging, one’s sensitives, it was an excellent, “feel good” film. “Boy Erased” is a powerful, controversial observation of the effects of “conversion therapy”; based upon the 2016 memoir …

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy by Stieg Larsson (1954-2004, published posthumously) gifted readers one of the most creatively untoward heroines to grace, dazzle and spellbind lovers of fictional mastery, in contemporary literature; “Lisbeth Salander” a Merlin of computer hackers, a female Jackie Chan, a savant with an uncanny perspicacity, was first depicted by Noomi Rapace, in the Swedish …

Tolstoy said “the greatest surprise in life is old age”; haunting veracity of this phrase glibly informs the scenario of writer/director Elizabeth Chomok’s “What They Had”; a refined portrait of diminishment; “Ruth Everhardt” (sublime, Blyth Danner) is enmired in the quicksand of “Alzheimer’s”, its pathos affecting “Burt” (Robert Forster is galvanizing) her desperately devoted husband;  “Nick” (irrepressible Michael Shannon) beleaguered, …

Gloom, bleakness, a pensive dread hovers over the initial scenes of this vital, directorial debut by Paul Dano; a family on the brink of disintegration, newcomers to a tiny community in Montana, where fires are devouring the mountainous range; blue skies warring with encroaching, villainous smoke.  The major conflagration is silently raging in the “Brinson” household: “Jerry” (another prescient performance …

Run to see this film, worth so much more than its admission fee; run to see the enormity of Rami Malek’s performance as Freddie Mercury (Farrokh Bulsara), the lead singer in the English band “Queen”; run to see glorious filmmaking and a musical feat of wizardry, the total reenactment of Queen’s 1985 set at “Live Aid” concert,  Wembley Stadium, London.  …

Never have I encountered a more compelling, fascinating, enchanting character than “Doctor Shaun Murphy”, played sensationally, inimitably by Freddie Highmore; afflicted with autism/savant syndrome, his diagnostic dexterity matches iconoclastic “House” (Hugh Laurie); Dr. Murphy is filter-less, caustically correct, not only with a patient’s illness but imperfections in his/her deductive reasoning; his brilliance is tempered by loneliness, isolation, fear of friendship …

By far, one of the most intelligent films of the year. Director George Tillman Jr.’s outstanding depiction of Angie Thomas’ novel “The Hate You Give” is spellbinding; contemporary to the point of comfortable redundancy: we recognize the protagonists, we understand them, we know them, we befriend some and avoid others; characterization developed to perfection, especially “Starr Carter” a dynamic sixteen-year-old …