Netflix and Beyond

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 …

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 …