Netflix and Beyond

“Life without labor is guilt; labor without art is brutality.” John Ruskin Director Andrew Rossi focuses on the annual New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, fashion extravaganza held on the first Monday in May; Vogue’s Anna Wintour and Met curator Andrew Bolton orchestrate this unique fundraiser. We experience the creation of the massively successful 2015, “China: Through the Looking Glass”. …

Director Jerzy Skolimowski’ s exhilarating, edgy, electrifying romp for an eleven-minute time span in luscious, contemporary Warsaw, has a deliciously paralyzing effect on the viewer; the dizzying pace renders one immobile for its fascinating and compelling 83 minutes.  Brilliant camerawork and editing bounces from one scenario to another, knowing these disparate individuals are destined to collide; Skolimowski’ s fathomless imagination …

This quiet, subtle film based on the life of Chet Baker (1929-1988) is tautly directed and written by Robert Burdreau and profoundly performed by Ethan Hawke; Baker’s warts are glaring and immutable; Hawke’s depiction focuses on his vulnerability, sensitivity and uphill struggle to starve off his burning, perpetual craving for heroine; Baker cannot touch his creative pinnacle without the “dust …

In a ten-day period there has been a blitzkrieg of biopics about singers/musicians born between the years 1923-1929; inspired geniuses, “Apollo” (Greek mythological god of music) shed his potency, enabling them to sparkle above the fray; more than their distinguishing gifts, it is the lure of illicit substances that infuses, defines their commonality: Hank Williams, (1923-1953), “I saw the Light”; …

Harrowing. Haunting. A drama so powerfully filmed and acted it will hover eerily in your consciousness for days after viewing. “Krisha” (sensational portrayal by Krisha Fairchild), a woman in her 60’s perpetually stares in the mirror searching for shadows of her bygone beauty; the camera mercilessly strokes a face ravaged by alcoholism; written and directed by  Trey Edward Shults. Krisha, …

How do average, relatively intelligent parents, cope with a prodigy? Writer/director Jeff Nichols, more than entertaining fantastical journey, featuring an eight-year-old boy, “Alton” (miraculously performed by Jaeden Lieberher) with skill sets beyond the norm and a time schedule predetermined by unknown forces, presciently addresses this dilemma; his father, “Roy” (another stunning portrayal by Michael Shannon)  facing supernatural challenges and “Lucas” …

Hank Williams (1923-53), country western singer and songwriter, supernova, whose fire was extinguished at the age of twenty-nine; a damaged heart and back (spina bifida), a voracious alcohol and drug addiction cauterized his longevity. He is immaculately depicted by English actor Tom Hiddleston. Hiddleston, an accomplished Shakespearian actor (check out the BBC broadcast of “The Hollow Crown: Henry V”) bears …

It is rare when a Bollywood film lingers in Western theatres for more than a week; surprisingly, but more than worthy, “Kapoor and Sons” survived the seventh day elimination; blurring the lines between east and west the movie focuses on three generations of the “Kapoor” family, confronting issues pervasive in all cultures: love, rivalries, indiscretions, subterfuge; a family torn asunder, …

There is a purity, a sublime essence in “Marguerite” that is sensationally unique; an unlikely heroine, both tragic and admirable, a Diva whose talents lie in the bastardization of every iconic aria created by the masters of music; Mozart, flayed, her favorite, unworthy victim. Catherine Frot is magnificent as “Marguerite”, a Countess of formidable means in 1920, Paris; her screeching, …

Director Gavin Hood’s taut, traumatic, contemporary warfare film will ambush viewers from its first frame to its stunning conclusion. Starring Helen Mirren as  UK “Col. Katharine Powell”, who after a six-year hunt has discovered the lair of suicide bombers and key terrorists in Kenya; Drone technology allows the military to detect, spy and target threats to international security; “Eye in …