Film/TV

669 results
Page 29
Don't expect a documentary.

Grímur Hákonarson's 'Rams'

Hard as horns, soft as fleece

Rams draws you in with its vast, cold landscapes and hooks you with a simple story of two old hearts thawing out.

Ryan Dellaquila

Articles 2 minute read
Life is not a field of roses for Hap and Leonard.

Sundance TV’s 'Hap and Leonard'

Politics and the buddy film

Hap and Leonard depends on the clichéd Hollywood notion that folks at the bottom of the economic ladder are all actually remarkably intelligent, witty, and, under the skin, brothers in capitalistic striving.
Rick Soisson

Rick Soisson

Articles 3 minute read
Taking each other’s inner lives for granted: Courtenay and Rampling.

Andrew Haigh's '45 Years'

45 years of marriage and a postscript of unanswered questions

45 Years is like a Rorschach inkblot onto which we can project many layers of meaning. We know that Geoff and Kate are stunned and puzzled, but much of what is going on inside each of them is left to our imagination.
Victor L. Schermer

Victor L. Schermer

Articles 5 minute read
Staring down death: Leonardo DiCaprio. (© 2015 - Twentieth Century Fox)

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.

Paula Berman

Articles 5 minute read
Devilishly charming: Tom Ellis.

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.
Gary L. Day

Gary L. Day

Articles 3 minute read

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A friend betrayed: Cannavale and Essandoh. (all photos © 2015 HBO)

'Vinyl' on HBO

Deep tracks

Vinyl is Scorsese at his most Scorsese. Unfortunately, the master offers little that we haven’t seen before.
Michael Fisher

Michael Fisher

Articles 5 minute read
A bravura portrayal: Gooding as Simpson. (photos © 2015, FX Networks)

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.
Armen Pandola

Armen Pandola

Articles 4 minute read
Jane (Bella Heathcote) and Lizzie (James): no shrinking English maidens. (Photo by Jay Maidment - © 2015 CTMG, Inc.)

'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.
Naomi Orwin

Naomi Orwin

Articles 3 minute read
Such nice young men.

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?
Rick Soisson

Rick Soisson

Articles 3 minute read
The media is complicit in Steven Avery’s ordeal. (© 2016 Netflix)

'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.
Armen Pandola

Armen Pandola

Articles 4 minute read