Netflix and Beyond

Jennifer Hudson is superb as “Winnie Mandikizela-Mandela” (1936-) the sixth daughter of a teacher and  second wife of Nelson Mandela (1918-); her feistiness as a youngster and intellectual alacrity wins her a scholarship and enlightenment in Johannesburg; she is courted and returns the affections of revolutionary, anti-apartheid/lawyer Nelson Mandela (Terrence Howard’s  interpretation is infused with frustration and the agony of ... Read More »

For Western audiences there is nothing unusual about a scenario revolving around crippled commitment; a huge percentage of couples live together without the shackles of a marriage certificate, it is recognized; a state, previously shunned, now monumentally practiced. But in India, with a tradition, going back to the Vedic period (1500-500 BC, and the iconic “Sita/Ram” fable) of “arranged marriages” ... Read More »

“Amin Jaafari” (Ali Suliman) a Palestinian surgeon living and practicing in Tel Aviv, embraced by his Israeli co-workers, the first Arab to obtain an Israeli achievement award; at the ceremony he articulates his fervent desire to remain in his adoptive environment. Noticeably absent from this, the most important moment of his life, is his beautiful wife, of fifteen years, “Siham” ... Read More »

Well-acted, well-written and well-directed; audiences are served a British conspiracy thrilled with enough twists, subterfuge, unseemliness to keep one’s attention riveted to the screen. London has been traumatized by Islamic terrorists, in today’s vernacular: suicide bombers: July 7, 2005; tube and bus bombings left fifty-two dead and hundred maimed, forever scarred; this disaster birthed the mightiest of surveillance contrivances in ... Read More »

This wickedly, wildly funny film revolves around five Englishmen, approaching forty, renewing their vow of imbibing  or “pinting” in every pub in the small English town of their youth; there are twelve such establishments, “The World’s End” being the heralded finale. Simon Pegg (with director, Edgar Wright) wrote and stars in this strange, haunting, testosterone-infused horror story; Mr. Pegg is ... Read More »

Jane Austen (1775-1817) would have been horrified at this insipid, inane, twenty-first century disambiguation of her classic 1813 novel,  “Pride and Prejudice”. Austen, like many brilliant women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, exercised her intellectual acuity through the written word; trapped in a male- manufactured bubble of hearth and home. From these confined maidens (Charlotte Bronte, George Sand, Mary ... Read More »

This poignant, realistic and beautifully -acted film addresses issues facing teenagers in today’s breathlessly-paced, information–orientated milieu; unlike fifty years ago, when the gestation period between adolescence and adulthood could be measured in years, months, now it is in days, nanoseconds. “Sutter” (gifted portrayal by Miles Teller) is a senior in high school, class jokester,  perpetually inebriated in a sweet, pathetic ... Read More »

Ashton Kutcher’s portrayal of messianic, Steve Jobs (1955-2011), the guru of  “Apple” computer, is finer than anticipated: he masters the inimitable “walk”, “talk”, “physiognomy”. The difficulty of playing an icon; someone who has been lionized by humanity, is the level of his recognition; it is impossible not to compare the actor to the man, especially a person so recently, formidably ... Read More »

Lee Daniels and Danny Strong gift audiences a comprehensive history lesson,  a portrait of the United States and its march from the 1950’s to the election of Barack Obama in 2008. Forest Whitaker, is magnificently remarkable as “Cecil Gaines” (the butler); a man who served, toiled in the hallowed, confined halls of the most renown home in the universe: the ... Read More »

How much thought do we devote to “voice -over’s”; faceless individuals, using vocal skills to enhance, terrify, imbue a film with success or failure?  Miniscule, moments. Recently, I had the opportunity to listen to snippets of iconic radio shows; the mind paints, sculpts the portrait behind the voice; those voices determined the longevity of a program: archival programs: “Jack Benny” ... Read More »