To enter: 1) You must be a subscriber to Peneflix. By entering the contest, you agree to share your information with Peneflix.com and will be subscribed to the Peneflix email newsletter. 2) You may only enter once. 3) You have to beat me; which is the easiest challenge of all. 4) $100.00 gift card will be mailed to you to enjoy movies. ... Read More »
Andy and Lana Wachowski are a dynamic, daunting duo; brother/sister filmmakers whose imaginative “Matrix” series and the 2012 “Cloud Atlas” stunned audiences with unexpected wizardry, galvanizing visual effects, magical emotional jaunts through untrammeled worlds. Alas, “Jupiter Ascending” is a mélange of mediocrity; cinematography is glorious but mixed with a ludicrous, ponderous scenario, dimensionless characterization, resulting in a pretty, but financially ... Read More »
Twenty-five year old writer/director Xavier Doland blesses the screen with a mesmerizing, complex, powerfully provocative depiction of a destructive mother/son relationship; brilliantly filmed, Doland’s screen is a triptych, one character at a time, squashed in the center, framed by blackness on either side; the viewer is imprisoned, breathless; claustrophobia threatens while the characters take turns ambushing one’s focus. Initially, we ... Read More »
Good intentions and fine performances could not rescue “Black or White” from drowning in a maudlin miasma of stereotypical predictability. “Elliott Anderson” (Kevin Costner) devastated by the loss of his wife, faces a custody battle over his biracial granddaughter, whom they raised since birth; their seventeen-year-old daughter died giving birth; “Eloise” (Jillian Estell) is an adorable seven-year-old, surrounded by affluence, ... Read More »
It’s time for the Peneflix 6th Annual Academy Awards Contest! To enter: 1) You must be a subscriber to Peneflix. By entering the contest, you agree to share your information with Peneflix.com and will be subscribed to the Peneflix email newsletter. 2) You may only enter once. 3) You have to beat me; which is the easiest challenge of all. ... Read More »
Challenging to best Russian authors when painting portraits of pain in the deepest, bleakest hues: “Anna Karenina”, “Roskolnikov”, “Prince Myshkin” doomed from conception to lives of sublime angst; possibly the callous weather, the vast isolation of the Russian landscape, unrelenting, unforgiving tumultuous power of the Barents and Caspian Seas, Volga River; futility of life under the Czars, the diminishment of ... Read More »
“Claire” is a mess, traumatically scarred, physically and psychologically; we encounter her in a group support session where the suicide of a former member is analyzed; Claire is isolated, remotely uninterested in recovery; her attendance defies feasibility . Every second of every frame capitalizes on her agonizing pain; she lies down in vehicles, devours massive, illegally attained drugs, gallons of ... Read More »
Marion Cotillard is a dazzling, superb Academy Award (“La Vie En Rose”) winning actress; her every role is infused with overwhelming dignity, deep understanding, pungently powerful interpretation; she partners with Belgium directors/ brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne in “Two Days, One Night”; “Sandra” a factory worker on sick leave is at the mercy of her co-workers; they have voted for ... Read More »
PENEFLIX 6th ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARD CONTEST is coming soon! The nominees are located here. It is that time of year, when once again I prove incapable of separating my mind and heart; they are so entwined that an autopsy would prove inconclusive. I vote for the film and nominees that I consider the best in their category. I do not play ... Read More »
In the first scene we see the “sniper” lying on his belly in war- torn Iraq; his weapon focused on a woman and child; the child is handed a grenade and runs toward a US convoy entering the area; does he kill the child? “American Sniper” is Clint Eastwood’s gloriously stunning tale of Chris Kyle, an ordinary man, keen marksman, ... Read More »
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