Two screen captures from the American masterpiece INDIGNATION based on a novel by Philip Roth
by Sam Juliano
Atlanta Falcon fans are not doubt still numb after last night’s Super Bowl debacle. But if you are a Patriots fan like our fearless leader Donald Trump you are right now experiencing pure gridiron ecstasy. It was certainly the most fantastical conclusion of any football championship game I have ever seen and I’m still wondering how it was possible that it played out the way it did.
Those who are interested in seeing my Top Ten and runners-up list, I apologize, but I still need one final week. It will be posted on Monday, February 13th. Right now it seems likely I will have a tie for my #1 position, as it is becoming fairly impossible to choose one over the other. But until Monday, I might still change my mind a hundred times more! 
We are still talking about the television countdown as a viable project for this year, but nothing has been yet decided remotely.
I finally caught up to the college drama set in 1951, INDIGNATION -based on a novel by Philp Roth – and it is a staggering masterpiece. Though it was in theaters over the summer, I had to avail myself of Amazon Prime. We saw:
The Salesman **** 1/2 (Saturday night) Angelika Film Center
I Am Not Your Negro **** 1/2 (Friday night) Harlem multiplex
Indignation ***** (Wednesday) Amazon Prime
Saturday Lucille, Broadway Bob and I saw the shattering “The Salesman”, the Oscar-nominated Iranian drama by master-class director Asghar Farhadi. Shahab Hosseini and Taraneh Alidoosti play a couple who play the leads in Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” but at home a slowly enveloping story of revenge plays out, one depicting a man seeking justice who loses his humanity in a finale that leaves any sane viewer wholly devastated. If I choose to count this film for my 2016 list (it is difficult decision) it certainly would make my Top 10. We took in the film at the Angelika Film Center in Manhattan at 7:30.
Lucille, Sammy, Jeremy and I took in the stupendous documentary about the history of racism, “I Am Not Your Negro” Friday at a multiplex in Harlem right around the corner from the landmark Apollo Theater off Frederick Douglas Boulevard. The film, directed by Raoul Peck, featured the specter of civil rights activist and author James Baldwin who was the “narrator” of a blistering documentary that traced segregation in the prime years of Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Medgar Evers. The film was a posthumous tribute of sorts to the brilliant Baldwin and his unfinished manuscript “Remember This House” and it stands as a damning indictment of white privilege in America. The film superbly incorporated movie clips, including several from films that starred Sidney Poitier, to pound home its powerful themes. Surely one of the best films of 2016. We all dined beforehand at a Red Lobster literally above the Apollo.
