Peneflix MOVIE REVIEWS BY PENEFLIX

Every year at the end of August, the Tomatina Festival is celebrated in Bunol, Valencia (Spain); approximately 15 tons of tomatoes are hurled, squashed, plummeted on thousands of willing participants, joyously sacrificing their inhibitions on the altar of gooey, glorious fun. This vibrantly red scene in “We need to Talk About Kevin” serves as the metaphor for the gruesome, horrific, ... Read More »

Winner of the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film and my guess the “Oscar” in the same category. This disturbing and thought-provoking movie from Iran gifts the viewer a realistic and insightful look into ordinary life of a culture anathema to those who live in the West; it it difficult to rise above your own freedoms and prejudices to ... Read More »

The 2005 novel by Jonathan Safran Foer was a compelling and excellent read. The movie version is immaculately filmed, directed and graced with fine, sensitive performances. Thomas Horn is a genius in depicting “Oscar Schell”, an 11- year -old gifted loner, trying to cope with the loss of his father (Tom Hanks). Then why was I bored, uninterested and capable ... Read More »

  Many of you have expressed concern over my new FACEBOOK page. There is no need; you will still receive the reviews and be able to comment, as before (“Pina”). I am still wandering, blindly in the labyrinth of the Facebook maze, but through trial and error and the guidance of my muse “Vishal” and son “Robert” the path will ... Read More »

Dance. Has a “dance” ever changed your life? Were you born to dance? Is it part of your DNA?  Dancing has the power to transcend every feeling: heartbreak, loss, meaningless migraines of minutia. Dance can free one of tireless shackles that dampen spirits, cloud vision, bulldoze barriers clutching, smothering youthful vibrancy. Nothing screams love, passion, unlimited joy more than a ... Read More »

Dear Subscribers, It is with some trepidation but more glee and excitement that I am plunging into the ubiquitous world of Facebook. Thank your for forwarding Peneflix Movie Reviews to your friends, it is greatly appreciated. In the future keep forwarding the reviews and encourage them to become Subscribers. For all my readers with Facebook accounts please visit by clicking ... Read More »

In 1991 a friend and I ,without children, went to see this Disney animated fairy tale;  twenty years later my experience and emotional reaction is even more profound. This captivating, irresistible  story seeks to elucidate beyond the epidermis; unpeel the obvious, unearth the “beauty” beneath the “beast” and the “beast’ beneath the “beauty” (“Gaston”). Walt Disney (1901-1966) was a visionary ... Read More »

Ronan Polanski creates a stunning film based upon Yasmina Reza’s play “God of Carnage”. I loved the play, and even more the movie. “Carnage” conjures mental malodorous images of massive massacres: “Rambo”, “Saving Private Ryan”, “Natural Born Killers”, “Kill Bill”, “Gladiator”; headless, limbless bodies nurturing vast wastelands, landscapes, meant for crop -rotation, relaxation, now just harbingers of death. Here we ... Read More »

“Brevity is the soul of wit” Polonius said it, I am attempting to practice it. TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY Based on the John Le Carre 1974 novel is a throw- back and excellent adaptation of this spy thriller. If you were intrigued by the novel you will relish this deliberately slow, quiet trek through the dark, murky corridors of subterfuge, ... Read More »

Meryl Streep is indisputably a titan, a genius in the world of film: it is unlikely that her abilities will be mimicked or duplicated in this century. Margaret Thatcher is also a remarkable woman, who with a will of steel triumphed and altered the political arena in England and the universe; a greengrocer’s daughter whose intelligence, vision and ambition led ... Read More »