Author: Diana Paul
The multiple award-winning 1917 is inspired by “American Beauty” writer-director Sam Mendes’s great grandfather’s experience during World War I. Almost everything you’ve ever seen in a war film is here in 1917. There are several homages to the classic Stanley Kubrick film, “Paths of Glory” (1957), including the technique of tracking a long take, seemingly a continuous single-shot with no cuts, of the brutal trench warfare that cost 9-12 million soldiers’ lives. (The calculus for civilian deaths would double the total.) It is as if we’re...
“Parasite” –Living Off Your Host
Parasite
This Korean multiple award-nominated, SAG Globe winning movie, Parasite, has captured the critics’ minds as it delves into the income gap, greed and class discrimination between the “one-percenter” wealthy Park family and the destitute, marginally employed Kim clan. The theme of the competitive, desperate search for wealth at one end of the income spectrum versus the content, oblivious upper-class entitlement at the other end permeates South Korean director, Bong Joon-ho’s films (“Snowpiercer” and “Mother” in particular.) This difficult theme...
Godfather of Harlem—Partners in Crime
Inspired
by a true story, Godfather of Harlem skillfully interweaves the combative and competing forces of the mafia with the battle for civil rights in the
mid-‘60s. In the riveting Epix limited series, Godfather of
Harlem, we see the character Bumpy Johnson (the exceptional Forest
Whitaker) re-enter the world of organized crime after being released from Alcatraz.
Drugs
have taken over many of New York’s poor communities, and the Italian mafia runs
most of them, now including the crime syndicate of Harlem which had been Bumpy
Johnson’s exclusive domain. Not...
Marriage Story (2019)-The Bonds of Love
Nominated this year for eleven Academy Awards, Marriage Story portrays two people who really care about, respect, and love each other, and yearn for a “gentle” amicable divorce resolution. They also are determined to nurture and nourish their young son, Henry, with as little wounding as possible.
Written, directed and produced by Noah
Baumbach (of “Squid and the Whale”, another excellent film about divorce), this
film eviscerates what happens in even the best-intentioned divorces,
reminiscent of the classic 1979 film
“Kramer vs...
Happy New Year 2020: The Year of the [Metal] Rat
Happy Chinese New Year 2020!
The Buddha taught rats first, among the animals in the Buddhist pantheon, and rats rank first on the Chinese zodiac. Though people who follow Western animal symbolism do not consider the rat either adorable or auspicious, nevertheless the characteristics of the rat are considered spirited, witty, alert, flexible, and that of a survivor. The Chinese New Year will begin on January 25, 2020 with the final celebration on February 11.
The Metal Rat Year is going to be a strong, prosperous, and lucky year for those who conduct financial research and follow...
My Top 15 Movies and TV Series for 2019
Here are the reviews I wrote this year with the criteria that they were available online or were at local movie
theaters, although not necessarily under broad distribution nor widely
distributed through move theaters. Of
the 43 reviews, here are my favorites. Another difficult year to make my listicle. As in past years, both television and cinema
have continued to produce phenomenal story-telling and intriguing characters.
The following list is not ranked, only
grouped by genre and date of review.
INDIES and FOREIGN CINEMA
1) Lo and...