Netflix and Beyond

Johnny Depp is captivating, mesmerizing as satanic James “Whitey” Bulger, Boston’s quintessential crime and drug sovereign in the 1970’s-80’s; warped dictator of the “Winter Hill Gang”.  Director Scott Cooper’s “Black Mass” is imbued with hefty performances from Joel Edgerton, as untoward FBI agent, John Connolly; Kevin Bacon, a righteous FBI agent, Charles McGuire; Benedict Cumberbatch, minimally used as Billy Bulger …

The only thing heroic about this formulaic, Bollywood romantic extravaganza is the time spent waiting for the conclusion; two newcomers, Sooraj Pancholi and Athiya Shetty play star-crossed lovers in a remake of Subhash Ghai’s 1983 version of the same title; once was sufficient, but Salman Khan  (producer) feels “imitation” is the highest form of flattery and commerce; seasoned audiences will …

M. Night Shyamalan, has captured his elusive groove, and audiences can shiver, viewing his tantalizing, titillating tale of two charming, disarming, precocious teenagers going to visit their maternal grandparents; Mom’s (Kathryn Hahn) estranged parents, longing to finally meet their genetic-connection. Fifteen-year-old “Becca” (sensational, stunning Olivia DeJonge) in the embryonic phase as a documentarian, films the entire excursion from commencement to …

Documentarian, Alex Gibney’s  brazen honesty and prescience, gifts viewers the “good, bad, and ugly” dimensions of Steve Jobs; “adopted visionary”, iconoclastic, unconventional genius; a man whose passing was mourned globally (1956-2011); since his death, his aura has exceeded mythic proportions; an exceptional man whose ambition and lust for technological advancement has changed the world and how we thrive in it …

Heart-arresting, thrillingly beautiful, positively poignant documentary focusing on three men’s obsession with the ultimate peak, “shark’s fin” Meru Mountain; a spiritual, 21,000 foot behemoth in Gharwal, Himalaya, India. Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk, disparate personalities linked by their super-human skills in scaling the most inflexible, hostile of mountains; even more amazing is filming their death-defying pilgrimage; “Meru” is …

Stephen and Alex (also directed) Kendrick, writers of the surprisingly sensational, low-budget film “War Room” are comforted by audiences’ approval of a movie that bludgeons with its monumental religious message: cease judging others, accept Jesus in your heart and hearth, cast out evil; only then may you join the ranks of the righteous. The “war room” is a metaphor for …

August 2010, I was at the inauguration of the renovated Taj Mahal Place Hotel in Mumbai, India (originally opened in 1903); it was not my first stay in this iconic, historical bastion of beauty, civility,  unfathomed wealth, facing the Gateway of India; wide, silent halls, decked with Eastern antiquities and splendor, lend an aura of magnificence, reflecting the depth of …

What I loved about this film was the lack of delineated suppositions; jarring, irritating, strident anomalies, whining, troubled, pressured protagonists; subterfuge, cataclysmic reversals; vampires and troubled teens; it was comforting, cozy watching septuagenarians stepping beyond their “years” , questing one more athletic accomplishment before relegating their dreams, unfulfilled fantasies, to the dormitory of life’s regrets. Robert Redford and Nick Nolte, …

Preposterous plot, nonetheless compelling, riveting; manipulative, exploitive; sensationalistic, exaggerated from commencement to conclusion. “Jack Dwyer”, having bombed in his profession in the US, drags his family to some unnamed Southeast Asian country, where he is hired, by a mega- corporation, to purify their water supply; neglecting to delve into the xenophobia of the population, they arrive in the middle of …

“Sweet”, a word I’ve always shied away from (except when referring to dessert); rhyming with “meek”, “tweak”, “geek”, “reek” , just a wishy-washy word lacking pungency or redolence. “Learning to Drive” (based on an article written by Katha Pollitt) has changed my perspective on sweetness and its properties. Patricia Clarkson and Ben Kingsley shine as student and teacher in the …