Netflix and Beyond

Digital detritus. Director Guy Ritchie’s bastardization of the magical myth of King Arthur and his sword, Excalibur, is an excruciating excuse for entertainment. Minimal life support provided by actors Jude Law (King Vortigern), Charlie Hunnam (Arthur) and Eric Bana (Arthur’s father) could not salvage this disaster, croaking in theatres; blessedly exsanguinating after 2 hours and 6 minutes. King Arthur and …

“Mary” (Debra Winger), “Michael” (Tracy Letts), “Robert” (Aidan Gillen), “Lucy” (Melora Walters) four of the most bludgeoning boring individuals on today’s screen; dimensionless, dull, suffering from “arrested development”, without infidelity’s titillation their lives are defined by perilous mundanity. Mary professes that they are not “bad people”; there is nothing good or interesting about them either!   ONE STAR!   Peneflix

It is rare when a Bollywood film lands in the top ten viewed flicks in the Western World; “Baahubali 2” is the highest grossing Indian film ever (the price of admission exceeds the norm) made. Is it worth the time (3 hours) and added expense? If you’re a fan of the spectacular, absolutely. The Indus Valley Civilization traces its origins …

Quietly profound slice of life; a moment in time that all who have reached the age of maturity will recognize its veracity, silently stunning emotional upheaval; normalcy interrupted, a catastrophic event severs the complacency of a twenty-five year marriage. Writer/director Mia Hansen-Love partners with inimitable Isabelle Huppert and paints a portrait of time, acceptance, change and openness to “things to …

George Orwell’s “1984” was published in 1949; eerily disturbing, futuristic portrait of a world where privacy was banned; lives were watched and controlled by “Big Brother”; rules broken led to annihilation. Director James Ponsoldt’s “The Circle” (based on Dave Eggers 2014 novel) is a more benign, palliative world but just as invasive and lethal.  Tom Hanks as “Circle” Founder, “Eamon …

The prize for territorial inquisitiveness is championed by the British, it is imbedded in their DNA: Sir Frances Drake, 1540-1597 (circumnavigated the globe); Sir Walter Raleigh, 1552-1618 (the New World, Virginia); James Cooke, 1728-1779 (New Zealand); David Livingston, 1813-1872 (Africa); Percy Harrison Fawcett, 1867-1925 (South America) and the focus of the spectacular “The Lost City of Z”. Writer/director James Gray …

Live long enough and you’re destined to encounter “Norman”; abrasive, aggressively assertive, refuses to be ignored, impossible to insult, but beneath all the “mishegoss” lies a decent heart and soul of a loveable, annoying charmer. Richard Gere sears with his astounding performance as a man desperate to “fix” sticky, tricky situations, “Norman Oppenheimer”, nattily dressed, ceaselessly on his phone, walking …

Arshile Gorky (1904-1948) was the artistic bridge between European Surrealism and American Abstract Expressionism; his most iconic work is a portrait of his mother and himself as a young boy; she died in his arms of starvation during the Turkish attempt to annihilate the Armenian population; between 1915 and 1923 over a million and a half Armenians were assassinated, starved, …

Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was a woman among men, born into restricted British aristocracy; brilliant, Oxford scholar, bored with the limited horizons of a young Victorian woman; she escapes to Tehran, Persia in 1892, where her uncle was the British ambassador; free, her intellect soared, and for the rest of her life Orientalism and its enigmas taunted her taste buds, ignited her …

Last year, on the advice of my sage sister, I binge-watched Britain’s television detective drama, “Foyles’s War” (2002-2015); truly one of the “finest” programs, written by Antony Horowitz, I have ever indulged in; commencing in 1940 the scenario stretches through WWII and beyond; starring Michael Kitchen as detective “Christopher Foyle” and Honeysuckle Weeks as his driver “Samantha Stewart” two of …