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Emilia Pérez–A Gender Bender

Emilia Perez was Inspired by both  Boris Razon’s 2018 novel Écoute  and by the opera libretto written by French director Jacques Audiard. The movie also won the 2024 Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and multiple Golden Globes for a musical drama. Emilia Pérez (Karla Sofía Gascón of Mexican telenovela fame) is a former Mexican cartel leader. Juan “Manitas” Del Monte, who fakes Manitas’s death in order to become her true self as a woman.  Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldaña) primarily defends drug lords, those guilty of domestic violence, and murderers.  Drug lord...

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Juror #2–Trial by Fire or Twelve Angry Men?

In this latest Clint Eastwood movie (2024), we see the jury selection process for the trial of  a brutal murder of an abused young woman, Kendall Carter (Francesca Eastwood).  After an odious fight with her abusive boyfriend, James Sythe (Gabriel Basso of “The Night Agent”) in a local bar, Kendall is found dead, bloodied and battered in a ravine.  The pending trial in Juror #2 seems likely to result in  a predictable verdict of guilty for the former drug-addicted abuser. Enter Justin Kemp (a remarkable Nicolas Hoult of “The Great” and “The Menu”), a freelance journalist...

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My Top 17 Movies and Series for 2024

This year I have seventeen films and series to recommend.  Some are less well-known and under-the-radar.  Also, there seemed to be more selections from DEI producers and writers, for a welcomed change! Here are the reviews I wrote this past year with the criteria that they were available online.  Of the 45 reviews I posted this year, these are my favorites, my “listicle”.  As in past years, both television and cinema have continued to produce phenomenal story-telling and intriguing characters. And this year many of the indie/foreign films could...

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Conclave–A Sinful Synod

Based on the 2016 novel  by Robert Harris, Conclave opens with the death of the current pope and the mandate to appoint a successor through the conclave or synod of over one hundred cardinals from all over the globe.  Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), the right-hand Brit who is the dean, must supervise the synod. As the Catholic Church’s most powerful leaders gather to vote, Cardinal Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci) argues that he is best positioned to be pope, although he protests that he has no ambition to be the Holy Pontiff.  Tormented by his own crisis in faith and...

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Operation Napoleon–Frozen Conspiracy

Operation Napoleon,  a conspiracy treasure-hunt thriller, will have you thinking you are watching an “Indiana Jones” drama.  Romanticizing parts of  a true story, Operation Napoleon opens in April 1945, when a Nazi airplane  flies over Iceland in the middle of a storm.  The plane crashes with no survivors.  Germany surrenders a few days later. Flash-forward to today.  A corporate lawyer, Kristín (Vivian Ólafsdóttir), is seen demolishing an arrogant entrepreneur’s deceptive business plan to finance  his company’s search for...

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The Perfect Couple–Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder

The Perfect Couple, an American seaside mystery based on the 2018 novel of the same name by Elin Hilderbrand, was released on Netflix in September.   Set in Nantucket in an opulent mansion, Greer Garrison Winbury (Nicole Kidman), a famous murder mystery author, is obsessing over the wedding for her favorite son, Benji (newcomer Billy Howle), to a middle-class zookeeper, Amelia (Eve Hewson of “Bad Sisters”).  The wedding is abruptly interrupted when the maid-of-honor, Merrit (Meghann Fahy),  is discovered face down on the beach in front of their estate.   The wedding is...

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