Netflix and Beyond

In the countless of films I have seen, there have been a limited number of performances that I have never forgotten: Louise Rainer, “The Great Ziegfeld”, Audrey Hepburn, “Roman Holiday”, Katharine Hepburn, “Lion in Winter”, Maggie Smith, “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”, Meryl Streep, “Sophie’s Choice”, Jane Fonda, “Klute”, Sally Hawkins, “The Shape of Water”; Melissa McCarthy’s sublimely perfect …

Addiction. Millions grasp its power: sugar, nicotine, alcohol, heroin; in “Beautiful Boy” it’s crystal meth that has wrapped its poisonous tentacles around the mind, body and will of Nic Sheff; Tomothee Chalamet’s staggeringly brilliant portrait of a boy’s lust for an aphrodisiac, so euphoric, tantalizing, delicious in its initiation, that by the time he recognized its toxicity, impotency reigned against …

In preparation for, hopefully, the final version, of forty-year-old franchise, “Halloween” I watched the original, created in 1978; at the time I thought it was the most terrifying film I had ever seen; the frightful flavor, sans some of its redolence, is still there; with hindsight, its fascination lies, in its lack of technological effects; no seat belts, no cell …

Inapplicable is Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil”; there’s nothing banal about Andres Behring Breivik’s (1979) sinful slaughter of seventy-seven innocents on July 22nd, 2011. Director Paul Greengrass’s realistically brutal film, shuns sugarcoating the scenario of Norway’s heinous contribution to mass annihilation; another crazed, warped individual rallying against “multiculturalism”,  Marxism and its infestation of Norway’s purified, homogenous population. Anders Behring Breivik …

From the onset, director Damien Chazelle balances astronaut Neil Armstrong’s (1930-2012) life between the professional and the personal; initially plummeting through the atmosphere ensconced in space attire, versus his raw heartbreak, while caring for his dying daughter, Karen (1959-1962); Ryan Gosling humanizes (with the aid of Neil’s sons Eric and Mark) this remarkable, taciturn icon, whose legendary walk on the …

Historically, female authors have camouflaged their gender by electing male nom de plumes: the Bronte sisters, Charlotte (1816-1855), Emily (1818-1848), Anne (1820-1849), used the sobriquet “Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell”; Mary Anne Evans (1819-1880), “George Eliot”; Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), “A. M. Bernard”; Karen Blixen (1885-1962), “Out of Africa” and “Babette’s Feast” renown, disguising herself as “Isak Dinesen”; today’s J. …

Rising, in Phoenix tradition, the fourth, and pivotally realistic, version of a star-crossed, fatefully doomed, relationship; refreshingly compelling, due to the magnetism of its stars; Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga are daunting as “Jackson Maine” and “Ally Campana”; they flirt with the iconic greatness of 1954’s version directed by George Cukor, starring Judy Garland and James Mason, transcending the predictable …

For over eleven years and 1000 plus reviews, my sporadic filmic intermissions rejuvenate, not only my spirit, but how I view films; the escapism of movies, relief from reality, a hiatus from daily duties, is healthy, but has to be balanced with the flavor of things as they actually exist; blinders off, focusing on globalization and its effects on the …

The 1980’s, halcyon height of the drug wars in Detroit, a cavern of crime, devastation, addiction and fourteen-year-old, Rick Wershe Jr.; Richie Merritt is blissfully faultless in his debut performance; he maneuvers comfortably through the underbelly of Detroit’s infected, disenfranchised, punitive world. Director Yann Demange’s source was 2014’s “The Trials of White Boy Rick” by Evan Hughes, and it egregious, …

“Stephanie Smothers” is one of the most cloying, annoying, insufferable characters on today’s screen; her saccharine plasticity, oozes enough sweetness to induce a diabetic coma; she has a “vlog” showcasing her recipes; she is the single, self-deprecating, intensely dislikable mom of a five-year-old boy; Anna Kendrick’s depiction scores with grating perfection. Stephanie meets and befriends “Emily Nelson” whose glamour cannot …