Netflix and Beyond

Director/writer Dee Ree’s riveting masterpiece, focuses on racial divisiveness after WWII, in rural Mississippi; two families: “McAllan”, husband and wife “Laura” and “Henry” (Carrie Mulligan, Jason Clarke), brother “Jamie McAllan” (Garrett Hedlund) and “Pappy” (Jonathan Banks); “Jackson”, “Hap” and “Florence” (Rob Morgan, Mary J.Blige) and son “Ronsel” (Jason Mitchell); except for ownership, both families live within the eye of poverty’s …

It is a masterful, prodigious auteur who can produce a terrific film from one of the most disastrous movies ever realized. James Franco has accomplished, with verve, imagination and inimitable style, the magical. Mimicking the enigmatic Tommy Wiseau who wrote, directed, produced and starred in 2003’s catastrophic dud “The Room”; Franco’s interpretation, flawless indefinable accent, is gifted; Tommy, goth-like, dyed …

From its publication on Christmas Eve in 1843 Charles Dickens’ (1812-1870) “The Christmas Carol” has informed the life of every child in the free world for a hundred and seventy-four years; “The Man Who Invented Christmas” is a fantastic, fanciful concoction of Dickens’s madcap, frenetic rush to complete the “carol” by December 24th; Dan Stevens, with aplomb and, full-voltage electricity, …

Director/writer Dee Ree’s riveting masterpiece, focuses on racial divisiveness after WWII, in rural Mississippi; two families: “McAllan”, husband and wife “Laura” and “Henry” (Carrie Mulligan, Jason Clarke), brother “Jamie McAllan” (Garrett Hedlund) and “Pappy” (Jonathan Banks); “Jackson”, “Hap” and “Florence” (Rob Morgan, Mary J.Blige) and son “Ronsel” (Jason Mitchell); except for ownership, both families live within the eye of poverty’s …

Dia de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead) is a Mexican holiday celebrated between All Saints Eve, All Saints Day and All Souls Day,  October 31st-November 2nd every year; “ofrendas” (altars) take center stage, with photos of the deceased; laden with food, flowers and mementos, the dead spirits cross over into the land of the living; it is a …

At times, the best of intentions go oft astray, such is the case with Denzel Washington’s foray into today’s ambiguous legal milieu; he is a throwback to the world of Angela Davis, Artis Gilmore, James Baldwin; he is a righteous savant with principles intact, but flounders when his partner dies, and discovers the financial roots of his practice are made …

“Being different isn’t a bad thing.  It means you’re brave enough to be yourself. “Auggie Pullman” (Jacob Tremblay) isn’t given a choice; born with Treacher Collins Syndrome, which affects facial development, he hides beneath an astronaut’s helmet and has been home schooled by his mother “Isabel” (Julia Roberts); he is ten years old and going to school for the first …

Frances McDormand is an unprecedented force, a presence, not to be tinkered with, terrifying in her role as “Mildred Hayes”, distraught, grieving mother, crippled emotionally, chastising the minimal police force, especially “Chief Willoughby” (Woody Harrelson Harrelson gives a surprisingly empathetic performance) in their lack of initiative, in capturing the culprit who savagely murdered her daughter “Angela” (Kathryn Newton) seven months …

Director/writer Richard Linklater’s “Last Flag Flying” is one of the finest “road trip” films ever to grace the screen, slipping stunningly into the realm of: “Rain Man”, “Thelma and Louise”, “Little Miss Sunshine”,”Motorcycle Diaries”, “Nebraska”; stratospheric performances by Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston and Lawrence Fishburne, three Vietnam veterans, after a thirty year hiatus, travel to Arlington cemetery to bury “Larry’s” …

Winner of Cannes highest accolade, Palme d’ Or,  Swedish director (“Force Majeure”) Ruben Ostlund’s “The Square” is staggering in its execution; expectations, never realized; pungent metaphors; it’s only flaw, colossal ambition.  Sensual, “imperially slim”, Claes Bang depicts “Christian”, as a charmingly caddish director of a Swedish contemporary museum; spewing innocuous, “art-speak” pervasive in today’s artsy, rarefied vacuum; “Anne”, an American …