If you can stomach Alia Bhatt’s inordinate “cuteness”, pungent pouting, camera mimicry for the first third of the film, you’ll enjoy this flavorful Bollywood flick. “Kaira” (Bhatt) is a talented, but unrecognized neophyte, cinematographer. Commercial work and cameo scenes pay the rent but she is in a lacuna professionally and personally; lacking the aptitude for commitment, intentionally sabotaging her attachments ... Read More »
If only there were rules to keep this disappointing drivel from being distributed. From its inception to its finished embarrassment “Rules Don’t Apply” is Warren Beatty’s pejorative perspective on Howard Hughes’s diminished decline into his shameful dotage; harrowingly horrible, even if somewhat viable. Aldren Ehrenreich as “Frank Forbes”, is young enough to erase this from his filmography; Frank is part ... Read More »
Casey Affleck is grippingly profound as “Lee Chandler” a man whose spirit is fractured beyond redemption, no emotional, psychological surgery can mend him, damaged irrevocably, feeling alive when he instigates fights, beaten bloody, a temporal penance worthy of his egregiousness; a handyman, fixing the pipes, toilets, electricity of meaningless urban occupants, living in a squalid, solitary room, is named the ... Read More »
2016. Although it is rare, interracial marriage is prevalent and legal, since the Supreme Court in 1967 overturned anti-miscegenation laws; the defining case was Loving vs Virginia. The populace regularly sees splayed across a myriad of media vehicles the actualization of this decision: Kardashian/West, DeNiro/Hightower, Lucas/Hobson, Turner/Bach. Two simple people, Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving married in Washington D.C. in ... Read More »
Miles Teller, contemporary champion of the “method” acting technique; stellar in “Whiplash” as a drummer, and just as viable as boxer, “The Pasmanian Devil” aka Vinnie Pazienza, the paradigm of sport’s comebacks. Director Ben Younger focuses on Vinnie’s intransigent will to fight after his neck was broken (1991) in an automobile accident; recently defeating Gilbert Dele for the World Championship ... Read More »
Director Ang Lee’s exploration of the Iraq War (the action takes place in 2004) is depicted through the perspective of nineteen-year-old hero “Billy Lynn” (a gentle, sublime Joe Alwyn); poetically, gracefully the film moves from the cacophony of battle to the equally cacophonous thunder of a football halftime, theatrical display, on Thanksgiving Day. The owner of the Texas team, “Norm ... Read More »
Director Tom Ford eponymous style resonates in fashion, jewelry and film; “Nocturnal Animals” reflects his inimitable visual, artistic, innovative, imaginative skills. Commencing with a video of a Botero-like nude, corpulent, garishly painted model, lustily gyrating, salaciously stunning, hypnotizing viewers at a high-end art gallery in Los Angeles; “Susan” (commanding presence of Amy Adams) the proprietor of the gallery is a ... Read More »
Fascinating study revolving around life’s decisions; “what if’s”, second chances, “would we, could we do it all again?”. Director Denis Villeneuve’s “Arrival” is vastly more than a science fiction, alien invasion film; on the surface, it is simplistic, the earth has been invaded by hovering egg-shaped saucers; intent?, friend or foe? Louise, (brilliant, subtle, heartbreaking performance by Amy Adams) a ... Read More »
Thousands of lives were claimed in the battle for Hacksaw Ridge, Okinawa, Japan, 1945; Mel Gibson’s stunning, at times sensational film, based on the life of Desmond Doss (1919-2006), a bona fide conscientious objector, is brutally, savagely told. Desmond Doss, remarkably depicted by Andrew Garfield, in a profound, prescient performance. Doss, the son of an alcoholic, abusive father, a veteran ... Read More »
Marvel mania continues to dominate box office sales; Benedict Cumberbatch and Mads Mikkelsen as beacons of good and evil, give intense, strenuous performances, but unfortunately cannot salvage the plot from sinking into stale, repetitive versions of marvel movies of the past; shades of “Inception”, “Superman”, “Spider-Man”. Wizardry abounds when megalomaniac, arrogant neurosurgeon “Dr. Stephen Strange’s” (Cumberbatch) hands are mutilated in ... Read More »
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