The play was, and still is, one of the most idiosyncratic gems ever to grace the stage; the film is worthy of a second visit. Ben Platt again scores as the insecure, troubled teenager, “Evan Hansen”; director Stephen Chbosky in tandem with music creators Justin Paul and Dan Romer, for much of the movie, delightfully manipulate viewers emotions; tears were ... Read More »
In the past year we have watched endlessly, refuges on our borders; bedraggled stragglers, parentless children, nameless souls straining for life within the confines of our democratic society; we have also witnessed those who have lived in the United States their whole lives, only to be ripped away from their families because of undocumented status; “Blue Bayou” is an intimate ... Read More »
Clint Eastwood is an urban icon; he’s the “make my day” guy, legendary “Dirty Harry”; I have seen Clint Eastwood and his presence off the screen is just as magnificent as on, pulsating with charismatic enormity; so why in the name of his vast and stellar career would he produce, direct and star in this abysmal testimony of self-aggrandizement? He ... Read More »
You will investigate one of the more intriguing protagonists on today’s screen; “William Tell” (depicted with astounding skill by Oscar Isaac), is a gambler with inscrutable control, a card counter, winning just enough to live, avoiding the casino’s radar screen; Tell is the purist study of PTSD I have ever witnessed; jailed for his role as an interrogator at Abu ... Read More »
“CANDYMAN” (in theatres) A refreshing rendition of the 1992 original; taking it seriously from the get-go was an easy task because of the casting and direction (Nia DaCosta); “Candyman” is an urban legend, rising from the defunct Cabrini Green project in Chicago; doomed by his reputation, murdered unjustly; to meet him, stand in front of a mirror and say his ... Read More »
“MYSTERY OF THE LOST PORTRAIT” (AMAZON PRIME) Remarkability pungently, powerfully informs these two documentaries about a man, a polymath, whose iconic genius defies categorization: analyzation of the human body, helicopter, parachute, armored tank, a pioneer in the field of robotics, but it is his visionary paintings that cement his lionization, still pulsating fervently at the center of today’s art world, ... Read More »
SKIP: BECKETT (NETFLIX) In fairness I could not last for more than 15 minutes of tested endurance; insufferable travails of “Beckett” (John David Washington) and his unflinching, clueless, girlfriend “April” (Alicia Vikander); a sparkless relationship and plot deserving of cauterization at its inception. ANNETTE (AMAZON PRIME) Yikes! Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, two respected, consummate actors had me cringing with ... Read More »
Aretha Franklin (1942-2018) regardless of her gender, race, or possibly despite it, earned the highest honors of any individual in her league: 18 Grammy Awards, including Lifetime Achievement, Hall of Fame, Pulitzer Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom; she not only touched the celestial, she owned it; her life was informed by the Vietnam War, the assassinations of John and Robert ... Read More »
This is NOT a film review; it was a time of rejuvenation, a time to doff, escape the norm, the perpetual titillation of movie manna; deliverance from the cacophonous mayhem of city life: cars, motorcycles, souped up vehicles, whose only purpose is the annihilation of peace; a time to “stop the world” and wallow, effortlessly in a landscape guaranteed to ... Read More »
“HIT & RUN” (ENGLISH/HEBREW) NETFLIX A scintillating collaboration between Israel and Netflix starring inimitable, aggressively masculine, swashbuckling Lior Raz (“Fauda”) as “Segev Azulai”, a benign tour guide in Tel Aviv, his lithesome wife, “Danielle”(Kaelen Ohm) a dancer, whose death, initially assumed accidental, proves anything but; bouncing from New York and Israel, the scenario quivers with layers of duplicity, no one, ... Read More »
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