Netflix and Beyond

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 …

Poetic license is definitely insinuated when “Ethan Hunt’s” newest mission is delivered disguised in Homer’s “Odyssey”; hence the eponymous Hunt clones the Greek epic hero, “Odysseus/Ulysses”;  tested and passed with Olympian magnitude, Odysseus’ travails, within days, instead of years. For the sixth time, inimitable Tom Cruise, exuberantly swash-buckles, aerobically, defiantly flies through the film; at fifty-six, biconically performs his own …

Dance. For many millenniums it has celebrated living, pulverizing skeletal rigidity, lending liquidity to motion, in the words of the muse of movement, Isadora Duncan (1878-1927) “dancing is the highest intelligence in the freest body, the luminous manifestation of the soul”; it is universally therapeutic, a combination of the Vedic elements: earth, water, fire, air and the illusive ether, void, …

“When a situation or image can be interpreted in two different ways. You have a blindspot to the second interpretation.”  Writers/stars of “Blindspotting”, Daveed Diggs, “Collin” and Rafael Casal, “Miles” in a tightly-constructed, taunt three-day episode, prove the validity of this precept. Collin’s probation (initially unsure of what’s earned his incarceration) is nearing its completion; following the stringent rules for …

On July 12th, 1961, identical triplets were born and placed in three separate homes; the adoptive parents unaware of the brothers. In 1980 Robert Shafran, on his first day at a community college, is mistaken for Edward Garland, hence commences one of the most karmic connections in history; an electrifying documentary (directed brilliantly by Tim Wardle) that focuses on the …