IN THE EARLY DAYS of this blog seven or eight years ago, I noted the rising trend of films  about women, directed by women, and likely featuring strong women as protagonists or antagonists as the case may be. The trend has strengthened with the many new series out now.   Dune: Prophecy   IF YOU ARE PREDISPOSED to watch fantasy or Sci-Fi and already know of the Dune franchise, you should enjoy Dune: Prophecy, a prequel by ten-thousand years of the  two earlier segments. In the Dune universe of the first two, there is a powerful group of mystical robed and hooded women who have supernatural powers. These are the Bene Gesserit and while they at first  hint at  something akin to the witches of

  I HAVE ALWAYS enjoyed watching Colin Farrell act. Favorite movies of his come to mind such as In Bruges, Minority Report, and Banshees of Inisherin. Apple created an original  noir detective series called “Sugar,” after the main character: John Sugar, private investigator and played by Farrell. It is set in present-day LA and after four episodes, I am dazzled. There are other mysteries beyond the driving theme: the missing granddaughter to an ultra-famous movie producer.  He’s part of a larger service, but it’s not clear how that works (at least not to me, yet). He’s also got some personal psychological/physical symptoms that are starting to get more attention as the series progresses; all which build the tension and make it more compelling. The style,

  ABOUT TWENTY YEARS ago, while living in Arizona, I read a good number of the mystery novels by Tony Hillerman.  They centered on the exploits of a Navajo detective who used his senses of harmony and balance to solve crimes on the enormous reservation that covers parts of  Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado.  It includes Hopi and other tribal sections.  Robert Redford bought the rights to some of the material and co-produced this with George R. R. Martin and others. One of the benefits of the “whodunnits” here is the look into the Navajo culture. It’s matriarchal and mystical, holistic and animist; it’s beautiful, noble and vulnerable. [There’s currently a Ken Burns’ documentary on the American Bison and the effect is the same:

At an turning point in the film Joker, Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), is assaulted on the subway.  Due to a disability that causes him to laugh randomly, some fellow riders described as “Wall Street types” decide to rough him up. Because Arthur still wore the clown outfit he used as part of his work, one of the assailants tried to sing “Send in the Clowns” as a prelude to the onslaught. That scene propels the action to the next level. Arthur Fleck, The Joker, in the corrupt and failing city of Gotham and with no intention of doing so, becomes the name and face of  what is best described as an anarchist movement [Note: The Joker, in his madness, may incline toward nihilism or absurdism

The indie film “Any Day Now” contains none of the ingredients that the big studio films seem to insist upon.  There is little sex, no violence or special effects, and a setting that focuses on  a few years in the lives of a handful of people. Yet the film redefines what it means to be a hero and inspires you to search for moments in your own life when you rode into battle hopelessly outnumbered, your heart at the vanguard.  For the great majority of viewers, the  heroes  of  Any Day Now make you despair that you would inevitably fall short of their example, but they also give you the formula in case you find yourself in a similar position: take a worthy cause, side

Life  will suddenly confront you:  “Look at me, do you still want me–even if I am like this?”  Michael Haneke, the Austrian director of “Amour,” a French film, suggests that when life poses such a question, we answer “Yes, I still want you.”  He also suggests that Love is capable of confronting us: “Look at me, will you give up everything for me?” and that we might answer “Yes, because there’s nothing without you.” His movie has a pace to match the deliberate  movements of the elderly subjects he follows; this is not an action film. Yet it is the most honest film you will see–perhaps for the rest of your life. It’s a film about an elderly couple who were connoisseurs and teachers of 

I have chosen to be particularly paradoxical or perhaps simply obtuse today. I am going to write a review about a film I refuse to see. A friend, knowing my love for movies, asked if I had seen _____________, the latest self-help film, this one along the lines of What the Bleep Do We Know and The Secret. I had seen both of those films and more or less decided I was done with the genre. Though films that pass for New Age infomercials often contain some useful suggestions with regard to how one might live life more happily, I don’t need to read the books or watch a movie to get the same information. Besides, there’s a part of me that suspects a terrible