Celebrate Ingrid Bergman’s birthday with ‘Anastasia’ on Amazon

On Aug. 29, 1915, Ingrid Bergman was born in Stockholm, and this legendary actress certainly made worldwide impact in the movies during her long, fruitful career.   The Academy nominated her six times for a Best Actress Oscar and once for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar from 1944 to 1979, and she won three times, including Best Actress for “Anastasia” (1956). Set in 1928 Paris, Bergman plays the title role as Anastasia, a mental-shaken woman with bouts of amnesia, but with claims that she is the long lost daughter of the fallen Russian tsar,…

Pattinson stars in a great film that is anything but a ‘Good Time’

“Good Time” – The definition of resourceful is “having the ability to find quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties.” Connie Nikas (Robert Pattinson) is resourceful. The definition of desperate is “feeling, showing, or involving a hopeless sense that a situation is so bad, that it is impossible to deal with.” Connie Nikas is also desperate. Beware of a resourceful, desperate man, because he is dangerous. Directors Benny and Josh Safdie engineered a wildly stressful film that lurks in the grit and grime of an impossible situation, which features Connie as…

‘Patti Cake$’ cuts and trudges through the New Jersey grit to inspire dreams

“Patti Cake$” –  For Patti (Danielle Macdonald), her dreams are far better than her present state of affairs.  This 23-year-old, lifelong New Jerseyite lives with her mom (Bridget Everett) and grandmother (nicknamed Nana (Cathy Moriarty)) in a crowded house in which the television is always turned on, and her working hours are spent bartending at a depressing local tavern named Lou’s.  Lou (John Sharian) is stingy about granting Patti more hours but freely gives her frank, direct orders like, “The toilet is still clogged, and the karaoke machine isn’t going…