Film/TV
686 results
Page 31
Inarritu's 'The Revenant'
We are all savages
The Revenant is an example of a microgenre, the Ghost Western, a film in which a tormented white, male protagonist must avenge himself so his ghost can rest.
Articles
5 minute read
Fox TV's 'Lucifer'
Redeeming the ultimate bad boy
Lucifer is showing promise of something more sophisticated than a simple good vs. evil story set in a flashy fantasy environment. We are seeing a story unfold that questions the very nature of good and evil, and the proper place of both in today’s world.
Articles
3 minute read
'Vinyl' on HBO
Deep tracks
Vinyl is Scorsese at his most Scorsese. Unfortunately, the master offers little that we haven’t seen before.
Articles
5 minute read
FX's 'The People v. O.J. Simpson'
Revisiting the O.J. case
O.J. Simpson was not treated like any other defendant arrested for a double homicide. The characters involved aren’t the suspects you expect in a domestic murder — they’re squares in the crazy quilt of American celebrity.
Articles
4 minute read
'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies'
Mr. Darcy slays zombies
It’s hard to get over your first Elizabeth Bennet (Greer Garson) and Mr. Darcy (Laurence Olivier), but Pride and Prejudice and Zombies adds two more candidates to my list of favorites.
Articles
3 minute read
John Ridley's 'American Crime,' season two
Too many shades of gray
The second season of American Crime raises intelligent questions: Can a teenager struggling with his sexual orientation and rough sex fantasies actually be raped, and is there any hope of establishing that legally? Or is Taylor an odd variation of the Victorian heroine who dreams of being ravished, but then decides that wasn’t such a good idea after the fact?
Articles
3 minute read
'Making a Murderer' on Netflix
When innocence isn't presumed
Making a Murderer is the compelling story of how our criminal justice system is broken; it describes a societal murder in which police, prosecutors, the media, and the public conspire to find “undesirables” guilty.
Articles
4 minute read
'The Man in the High Castle' on Amazon
Baseball, apple pie, and swastikas
The Man in the High Castle is a revered masterpiece of the alternative history genre. Philip K. Dick’s original novel is mindbending; the Amazon series is considerably more grounded and dynamic than the novel, but no less compelling.
Articles
6 minute read
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'Flesh and Bone' on Starz
‘Black Swan’ Redux
Set in the cloistered world of professional ballet, Starz’s Flesh and Bone follows the journey of emotionally damaged dancer Claire Robbins. The series attempts to push the envelope with tabloid-worthy plot points but can’t transcend its balletic clichés and stale choreography to forge something original.
Articles
5 minute read
Charlie Kaufman's 'Anomalisa'
Missed connections
Though weighted with its fair share of flaws and failures, Anomalisa is a formally audacious and emotionally affecting film, and a worthy counterpart to Kaufman’s other cinematic work.
Articles
4 minute read