Netflix and Beyond

Despite a strong performance by Chloe Grace Moretz the movie lacks electricity, feels dated, solution-less, serving a flat and unsatisfying conclusion. “Cameron” a teenager in the 90’s is sent to a Christian conversion facility to reprogram her “gender confusion”; Jennifer Ehle is “Dr. Lydia Marsh” a softer, palatable, just as lethal version, of Jim Jones or David Koresh, Bible thumping …

Why is this film joyous and “Generation Wealth” lugubrious? Both films feature those whose religion is consumerism, worshiping “stuff”, “labels” measuring, defining one’s persona. Director Jon M. Chu’s “Crazy Rich Asians” (based on Kevin Kwans’s 2013 novel) is just as laden with overblown, excessive guzzling of commodities; the difference is style: gratuitous, glamorous grace, abundantly jeweled, cocooned in couture,  the …

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, when I became a man, I put away childish things.” Corinthians 13:11 The epistle lacks the prescient power of recognition and memory; what one cherishes in the formative years, determines behavior in adulthood, certain things should never be cauterized, just pocketed, protected in a safe …

There is something unsettling, unnerving, unsatisfying in Lauren Greenfield’s documentary about how a few define themselves by their purchasing power; barely representing one percent of the universe, focusing on these limited individuals, vapidity resonates with each example: rapacious mother with her “JonBenet Ramsey” lookalike daughter; high definition plastic surgery, destroyed creation, manufactured plasticity; commodification of pornography; individuals cocooned in bubbles …

Spike Lee, now a man in his sixties, has made the finest film of his career; there’s historical balance; the anger is prevalent but tempered with an over forty-year perspective; intelligence informs the true story of African-American, Ron Stallworth’s infiltration into the Ku Klux Klan. It is the 70’s and the era is ripe with racial divisiveness; frustration from the …

Bollywood’s version of Lee Daniels’, 2009 “Precious”; a galvanizing lesson to never judge “a book by its cover”; director Atul Manjrekar’s “Fanney Khan” incorporates much of the traditional Bollywood aesthetic: torrents of tears, scintillating songs, dramatic dance sequences, but it is the performance of Pihu Sand, “Lata Sharma” (similar to Gabourey Sidibe, in “Precious”) that stupendously soars with irresistible, incredible,  …

Alexander McQueen would have been forty-nine today; but at the age of forty, the eve of his mother’s funeral, he had had enough and he hung himself. Unlike the fox “who knows many things”, reminiscent of the hedgehog, “who knows one big thing”; he is a behemoth, legendary in the fashion universe; a poor, abused bloke who used his demons …

We meet “Agnes”, saintly as her namesake, preparing for a birthday: decorating, cooking, cleaning, and it is not until she carries the cake into the dining room that we realize it is her birthday; she is loved, but unrecognized, a specter to her husband and sons; robotically skilled at the mundanities of housework, parenting and partnering. A thousand piece puzzle, …

So many of you have requested this filmic information. They are listed as I have seen them. For reviews check Peneflix archives, everyone’s taste is infused with different flavors; READ reviews before viewing; consider yourself forewarned. I love the twisted, foreign, horror genres along with soapy, platitudinous, sentimental, saccharine fare. BLACK PANTHER OPERATION RED SEA (CHINESE) LOVE, SIMON FOXTROT (ISRAEL) …

The title alone seethes with blackish, iconoclastic hilarity; self-deprecating humor of a quadriplegic, destined to navigate the streets bound to a wheelchair; John Callahan’s (1951-2010) life, depicted with Procrustean power by Joaquin Phoenix (his acting acuity knows no parameters); writer/director Gus Van Sant lionizes John’s gravitas with insouciant pulchritude; a man who conquers alcoholism using laconic cartoons as a therapeutic …