Netflix and Beyond

Compelling, hypnotic simulated incarceration project initiated by Professor Philip Zimbardo in 1971 at Stanford University. Billy Crudup (mesmerizing as Zimbardo)  and the actual Professor were guests on “Charley Rose” recently; the interview piqued my interest, especially the manipulative, addictive powers of role-playing. Zimbardo, a philosophy professor, creates a scenario to test the psychology, mentality of prisoners and guards; after a …

Remarkably Tom Cruise’s celebrity does not transcend the plot of this tightly -wrought thriller; the action is intense,  feasible and expertly executed.  Writer/director Christopher McQuarrie eliminates the glibness, tongue-in-cheek parodies pervasive in contemporary “save mankind” films. Cruise’s portrayal of hero “Ethan Hunt” is sensationally seasoned; with equanimity he hangs from planes, stoically survives excruciating beatings; Houdini-like escapes, actualized with slippery …

Salman Khan puts his financial largesse, talent and a major portion of his soul into this Bollywood extravaganza; a unique, subtle, spirited view of Hindu/Muslim relationships. Lacking bludgeoning, blatant, self-serving proselytizing, the film beautifully addresses religious, cultural differences by using as “tools” a simple, righteous man “Pavan” (Khan) and a mute, lost Pakistani girl, “Munni/Shahida” (the heart of the film; …

On Saturday May 2, 2015, I was one of the millions of lemmings lusting to watch the “fight of the century”: Floyd Mayweather versus Manny Pacquiao; not an aficionado of the sport, but a fan of great boxing films;  grossly naive, felt this competition would have some aspects of “Rocky”, “Raging Bull”, “Cinderella Man’”; lacking gusto, barely-breathtaking, the only surprise …

Woody Allen has accomplished the irrational; no matter the protagonist, either male or female, it is Allen’s persona that is splayed upon the screen; in this, his most recent “autobiographical” scenario, he cloaks himself in the guise of Joaquin Phoenix,  playing a neurotic, psychotic philosophy teacher; Allen’s frustrations spiral into the macabre; all the awards, female conquests, even marrying his …

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) has to be kvelling in the afterlife knowing that over seventy actors have played his iconic detective “Sherlock Holmes”; Ian McKellen, the latest “Mr. Holmes” is stellar as the man in his dotage, loosing his prescient intellectual deductions, struggling against the evaporation of time, grappling to recall and right a thirty-year-old “cold” case, documented by  …

I knew a couple whose roles were similar to “Amy” and  “Aaron”; volatile, electrifying, boozy Amy versus staid, calm, reliable Aaron; their combustible relationship would have been ephemeral if Amy had not righted her ways; they are still together, contented and happy. Writer/actor Amy Schumer stars in this semi-autobiographical tale of her own dysfunctional formative years; her relationships with her …

Disturbing, creepy documentary by director Crystal Moselle, focuses on the Angulo family; seven children imprisoned in their Lower East Side Manhattan apartment, by their paranoid parents; Moselle sees the uniformly dressed brothers (6 boys and a girl) waist-length pony tails, dark suits, sunglasses; curiosity piqued, Moselle engages the boys and the result is one of the strangest urban, gothic tales …

Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix,  Jim Morrison, Jean-Michel Basquiat…..Amy Winehouse (1983-2011), all died at the age of 27; supernovas extinguished by their own manufactured flames. Asif Kapadia’s stunning, brutally honest documentary about the doomed talent resonates to the core with the unadulterated pain of an unprotected, over-exposed ego; Amy was a one-dimensional individual, supremely gifted with a voice to …

“Magic” has been replaced by nostalgia; longing for the vibrancy and electricity of 2012’s “Magic Mike” the sequel pales and is lame, “limp” in comparison. Yes, the physiques are flawless, honed to scintillating perfection, gyrating, double-jointed, slithering between fawning, manic maidens and matrons; still possessing the “moves” but the fire, passion has fizzled, leaving a placid, stale imitation of what …