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PENEFLIX ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARD CONTEST 2019, THREE WEEKS LEFT!!!

Once again February has shed prominence on the stars, movies and those behind the scenes. This year is the most difficult, challenging to date, due to the range and diversity of the films and nominees. I feel there should be separate categories for drama and comedy. I also question “Roma” being in “Best Movie” and best “Foreign Film” categories. Every ... Read More »

PENEFLIX ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARD CONTEST 2019, SELECT AND WIN!!!

Once again February has shed prominence on the stars, movies and those behind the scenes. This year is the most difficult, challenging to date, due to the range and diversity of the films and nominees. I feel there should be separate categories for drama and comedy. I also question “Roma” being in “Best Movie” and best “Foreign Film” categories. Every ... Read More »

CAPERNAUM (CHAOS) ARABIC:ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Katharine Smyth in “All the Lives We Never Lived” proposes that there is one book for every life, with “the power to reflect and illuminate that life”; Lebanese director/writer/actor, Nadine Labaki’s magnificently tragic “Capernaum” is the nascent, metaphorical film featuring misplaced, disenfranchised refugees; focusing on a twelve-year-old Syrian boy “Zain” (Syrian refugee,  Zain Al Rafeea) undocumented, uneducated, malnourished, suing his ... Read More »

COLD WAR POLISH (ENGLISH: SUBTITLES)

This year has voyeuristically regaled audiences with two remarkable films by auteurs who culled from their memories, splayed on the screen, with respectful redolence, their lineage: “Roma” (reviewed 12/9), directed by Alfonso Cuaron (b.1961)  and “Cold War”, a masterpiece directed by Pawel Pawlikowski (b.1957); reverence resonates throughout both movies; filmed in black and white, uncompromised by color, seize and steadfastly ... Read More »

SHOPLIFTERS (JAPANESE: ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

A microcosm in a sphere that has ignored, overlooked them; director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s (“After the Storm”) enchanting tale, beautifully scripted, has viewers rooting for the illegal success of the “shoplifters”: “Osamu” (Lily Franky) and “Shota” (Jyo Kairi) effortlessly depict a copacetic team of thieves (their wonderfully warped logic; “if it’s in a store, it belongs to no one”, satisfying the ... Read More »

GOLDEN GLOBES

A night of glitz and glamour (Lady Gaga in an award winning gown), more importantly a night of civility and class; it was as if the egregiousness of this past year was left in the wake of a new era; the presenters and winners, like the strongest steel, emerged from the flames, surviving a year of discontent, stronger, highly polished ... Read More »

ROMA, SPANISH: ENGLISH SUBTITLES (IN THEATRES & DECEMBER 14TH, NETFLIX)

Profundity prevails in this sweeping, magnificently glorious film; director/writer Alfonso Cuaron’s reminiscent tale of life in a middle class Mexican family stuns with its purity, lack of guile, genuine veracity; black and white format emphasizes the functionality of a household whose maid “Cleo” (newcomer, Yalitza Aparicio) adhesively keeps the family, and its daily mechanisms in tow; Cleo is worthy of ... Read More »

POTPOURRI OF WHAT TO SEE ON TV!

For those living in unfriendly weather environments, to those with physical challenges and the multitudes who lovingly lounge, cling on long, lazy weekends to their couches, here are some films to fill the hours: “The Kindergarten Teacher” Netflix. Maggie Gyllenhaal enthralls in a remake of 2014’s Israeli film of the same title. A frustrated, mediocre poet, discovers a poetic prodigy ... Read More »

PENEFLIX IS ON A TWO WEEK SABBATICAL

For over eleven years and 1000 plus reviews, my sporadic filmic intermissions rejuvenate, not only my spirit, but how I view films; the escapism of movies, relief from reality, a hiatus from daily duties, is healthy, but has to be balanced with the flavor of things as they actually exist; blinders off, focusing on globalization and its effects on the ... Read More »

BEST FILMS OF 2018 TO DATE:

So many of you have requested this filmic information. They are listed as I have seen them. For reviews check Peneflix archives, everyone’s taste is infused with different flavors; READ reviews before viewing; consider yourself forewarned. I love the twisted, foreign, horror genres along with soapy, platitudinous, sentimental, saccharine fare. BLACK PANTHER OPERATION RED SEA (CHINESE) LOVE, SIMON FOXTROT (ISRAEL) ... Read More »

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