Midge Maisel is the archetypal 1950s New York Jewish housewife – a brilliant, attractive, well-dressed, multi-talented homemaker who single-handedly keeps her husband’s dream of being a stand-up comic alive through her cooking and negotiation skills. When he leaves her, her mainstream world is shattered, and through circumstance, it is Midge that, ironically, ends up becoming […]
Guillermo del Toro’s latest sci-fi/fantasy film is a Beauty and the Beast-style love story, about a mute cleaning woman (Sally Hawkins) who falls in love with, and then rescues, an amphibious Creature from the Black Lagoon-type humanoid from a 1960s Cold War-era secret government research facility. Despite del Toro’s now trademark imaginative visuals and strong […]
At first glance, this broody, moody German-language Netflix original series looks like a typical supernatural sci-fi drama about kids disappearing in the Black Forest. But a few episodes in, the plot elements suddenly look more like SNL nightclub promoter Stefan’s “it has everything!” list: a spooky cave, a nuclear power plant, time travel, marital infidelity, […]
Saoirse Ronan is Lady Bird, a precocious, opinionated teenager in this coming of age film set in 2003 Sacramento. Despite the family’s financial struggles and pushback from her pessimistic mother (Laurie Metcalf), Lady Bird secretly enlists her newly-jobless, depressed father (Tracy Letts) to help her pursue her dream of getting admitted to college in New […]
Disney/Pixar’s latest animated film is the sweet story of Miguel, a rebellious young Mexican boy who, against his family’s wishes, aspires to be a musician like his long-departed great grandfather. When circumstance lands him on an Iliad-style journey through the Land of the Dead, he encounters his deceased relatives and uncovers a decades-old family mystery. […]
This is the story of Touko Laaksonen, creator of Tom Of Finland, one of most iconic homoerotic art brands of the modern era. Pekka Strang delivers a subtle but compelling performance as the Finnish military officer who survives the repressive anti-gay post-WWII era through his macho, hyper-sexualized drawings, which years later, would become an archetypal […]
This multi-layered dark comedy/drama stars Frances McDormand as Mildred, a self reliant, blue collar badass who rents billboards to shame local authorities after they fail to find the culprit who raped and killed her daughter. Oscar-winning director Martin McDonagh clearly wrote this character for McDormand, who shines with zippy one liners, a tough as nails […]
This Netflix original drama, adapted from a Stephen King novella, centers on a dysfunctional family in rural 1922 Nebraska, where a farmer decides to kill his wife, with the help of their teenage son, to prevent her from selling the family farm. Thomas Jane (The Mist, Hung) is convincing as the conniving killer, and the […]
This is a long overdue documentary about the fascinating, behind-the-scenes process of creating iconic, goosebump-inducing film scores (James Bond, Jaws, Star Wars, Psycho, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark); the enormously talented, Oscar-winning composers responsible for them; and the clever directors who realize their critical importance to the success of their films. The documentary traces […]
This Netflix original period drama, adapted from the 2008 Hillary Jordan novel, is about two poor sharecropper families in the Mississippi Delta – one white, one black – and their struggle to survive appalling racial injustice, financial hardship and PTSD after a family member returns home to each family following World War II. The film […]