Netflix and Beyond

How can an actor of superior renown, a winner of fifteen Filmfare Awards (Bollywood’s equivalent of the Academy Awards) willingly plummet, with a resounding thud, into such a deplorable scenario? Shah Rukh Khan has intrigued audiences with his stunning versatility, his fearless choice of roles: from inebriated Lothario (“Devdas”) to stalker (“Fan”); from antihero (“Baazigar”) to coach (“Chak De India”); …

Al Gore lost the Presidency but found an even greater calling; an avocation has blossomed into a vocation; he has been the prime oracle,  alerting the world to the vicissitudes of global warming; winning an Academy Award for 2006’s “An Inconvenient Truth” this sequel cements his place in climate change history; his theories, authenticated, he is eminently confident lecturing to …

Joining the league of women action figures: “Evelyn Salt” (Angelina Jolie); “Kill Bill” (Uma Thurman); “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” (Noomi Rapace/Rooney Mara) and a plethora of others, but none can touch the cool, lethal prowess of “Lorraine Broughton”, an M16 agent seeking justice for a slain cohort in Berlin, 1989, the leak and “list” that led to his murder. Charlize …

Director/writer Gillian Robespierre  (“Obvious Child”) coming of age film in the late 1990’s is a stale rendition of a ubiquitous theme: experimental drug use, gratuitous sexual encounters, scatological humor, irksome giggling. Sisters “Dana” (Jenny Slate) and “Ali” (Abby Quinn’s performance kept me in my seat) discover their father’s “Alan” (John Turturro) affair, perplexity abounds around informing their mother, “Pat”, (Edie …

Kathryn Bigelow’s brazen and brutal depiction of the 1967 riots in Detroit, Michigan focuses on the slaughter at the Algiers Motel on the night of July 26th, 1967. Emotionally pulverizing (many left the theater), this film was overwhelmingly difficult to sit through; a supreme case of; “man’s inhumanity to man”;  “Krauss” (egregiously evil portrayal by Will Poulter) with a Howdy …

There is a dearth of film selections in theatres, so I have turned to Netflix to satisfy my craving for crime, scintillating serial killers and tenacious detectives on Netflix; you have asked, and since management aims to please, here are a few of my favorite television dramas: WITHOUT EXCEPTION, FOYLE’S WAR, WRITTEN BY ANTHONY HOROWITZ, STANDS ISOLATED, AS THE FINEST …

Christopher Nolan’s mesmerizing masterpiece on the vastness of vulnerability; war’s anonymous selection of who shall live and perish; regardless of rank, the process is random, emotionless, arbitrary. Nolan’s brilliant film focuses on a simple, far from extraordinary soldier, whose fate is in the hands of a higher power; “Tommy” (Finn Whitehead) runs through the streets of Dunkirk, searching for the …

Russian writer Nikolai Leskov’s (1831-1895) 1865 novella, “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District” has inspired an opera by Dimitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), a ballet by Rudolf Brucci (1917-2002); Polish filmmaker, Andrzej Wajda’s (1926-2016) 1962 “Siberian Lady Macbeth” brilliantly wallows in the restricted world of a nineteenth century woman, shunning conventions of the time, making her own rules, inevitably leading to her …

Summer selections in theaters have been puny at best; in desperation and fighting film withdrawal I have turned to Netflix for satisfaction. Director/writer Oriol Paulo’s (“The Body”) “The Invisible Guest” is stunning, riveting in gifting viewers another prescient take on the “Rashomon Effect”; identical scenario told from different perspectives. Brilliantly written and acted, there is a slick, balanced compilation between …

Recently, German films have brazenly analyzed their bleak accountability for WWII; “Labyrinth of Lies” (2014) was outstanding and “13 Minutes” directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel should be seen for a myriad of reasons: cinematography tightly, pristinely anchors the viewers attention to the plot; the acting is superb: Christian Friedel is haunting as young Georg Elser, an apolitical carpenter who devises a …