Screen Screed: Thoughts on Movies From a Lifelong Eater of Cinema

      In 2018 I wasn't in the mood to see Avengers: Infinity War in the theater.  I'd seen and disliked its predecessor, Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), a 141 minute long CGI crapfest inspiring in me, by the climax, a mounting need to stand by a urinal.       Infinity War , at 149 minutes, seemed to me to be more of the same, though, like an asshole, I judged it without seeing it.  In reality, I'd burned out on comic book-based movies by 2018.  I've seen a few in the theater since then, but the CGI-heavy blueprint of this genre bores me except when fundamentals of storytelling, good dialogue, direction, and acting, all work together, or, as in this third Avengers film, work together enough to produce a satisfying viewing experience.      There's a real son of a bitch with light purple skin, Thanos (Josh Brolin), who seeks to insert six Infinity Stones into a gauntlet worn on his gauche, or left (sinister), hand.  The St...

      If they never make another Star Wars movie that's fine with me.  I don't care one way or the other.  Will I watch a tenth Star Wars , or an eleventh?  Yes, but I won't pay to see them.  I've seen the seventh, eighth and ninth episodes on DVDs borrowed from my local library.  Otherwise I would've had to have spent up to thirty dollars paying a company that used to make quality entertainment, Disney, a corporation employing for its Star Wars projects a Spielberg producer named Kathleen Kennedy.        Kathleen Kennedy would be a good fit for the Star Wars  movie franchise if she gave a shit about it.  In true Hollywood liberal politically correct style, Kennedy has transformed the most beloved series of space   epics in cinema history into preposterous CGI-heavy extravaganzas featuring unbelievable characters (Rey the exemplar of the incredible), as well as flabby, murky plots, hosts of forgettable charism...

     It's a pleasure to encounter the work of a great actor for the first time.   Nayak ( Hero , in Bengali), from 1966, directed by Satyajit Ray, stars in the lead role Uttam Kumar, among the finest film actors I've ever seen, judging at least by his remarkable performance in this entertaining drama about a film star's spiritual crisis unfolding as he journeys by train from Calcutta to Delhi to receive an award.      Satyajit Ray, one of India's greatest directors, wrote the screenplay with Kumar in mind and intended to not even make the film if the actor refused the part.  The film got made, though, and at the height of Uttam Kumar's popularity, a perfect confluence since the story deals with a famous actor's growing doubt about the price that success has wrought on his moral character, spirituality, and his past connection to ordinary people when he was just a nobody working as a theater actor in a small company.      Ray at the...