There were people who hated House of Cards right from the start. Some were political analysts who didn’t find any of the outlandish events on the show credible. Others considered the cynical tone unappealing and sort of unhelpful in a world that was becoming increasingly ugly; did we really need a show where every politician … Continue reading House of Cards: Underwood’s Underworld
Prince Richard (Ben Lamb) of Aldovia is set to marry his bride, Amber (Rose McIver), but the country is rocked by protests against the royal family. This sequel is a slight improvement on the original, partly because we’re familiar with the characters now, but also because the film tries to deal with political intrigue and … Continue reading A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding
Photographer Abby Sutton (Kat Graham) receives an old advent calendar as a gift and begins to believe it has the ability to predict what’s going to happen to her each day in December. Another romantic Christmas tale from Netflix in their continuing struggle to compete with Hallmark, making an unhappy photographer choose between two attractive … Continue reading The Holiday Calendar
After arriving in the kingdom of Belgravia to take part in a pastry competition, Stacy De Novo (Vanessa Hudgens) discovers that the duchess who’s about to marry the prince (Sam Palladio) looks exactly like her… Another one of Netflix’s ridiculous Yuletide productions, set in yet another sugary fairytale country where everyone has a British accent … Continue reading The Princess Switch
HIS REAL LIFE WAS THE BIGGEST FANTASY OF ALL. In 1993, reporter and recovering alcoholic Danny Tate (Jamie Dornan) reluctantly agrees to interview Hervé Villechaize (Peter Dinklage), the hard-partying former star of TV hit Fantasy Island. Sacha Gervasi worked several years on getting this story filmed, based on an interview he had made with Villechaize … Continue reading My Dinner with Hervé
THE WOMAN HE’S ABOUT TO TOUCH IS A DREAM. THE MURDER HE’S ABOUT TO COMMIT IS NOT. A TV movie from those days when Ingmar Bergman was in West Germany as a tax exile. Conceived as sort of a spin-off to Scenes From a Marriage (1973), the story focuses on a constantly quarreling couple, begins … Continue reading From the Life of the Marionettes
WELCOME TO NO MAN’S LAND. The outlaw Roy Goode (Jack O’Connell) is on the run from his boss and adoptive father (Jeff Daniels), arriving in a small town where almost every man was killed in a huge mining accident… Much of what Scott Frank has written before (including the same year’s Logan) echoes Western symbolism, … Continue reading Godless
KNOWLEDGE IS A DANGEROUS THING. In the future, most books have been banned and the main objective of firemen is to find and burn them… but one of the regime’s loyal men (Michael B. Jordan) learns that he’s been lied to. François Truffaut made a watchable adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s classic novel in 1966; this … Continue reading Fahrenheit 451
WELCOME HOME. After the disappearance of two girls in her Missouri hometown, alcoholic reporter Camille Preaker (Amy Adams) reluctantly goes back home, but her overbearing mother (Patricia Clarkson) is not happy to see her… The director of Big Little Lies (2017) made another talked-about ”limited series” event for HBO that featured interesting female characters and … Continue reading Sharp Objects
FREEDOM IS FOR EVERYONE. The world probably needed yet another retelling of Nelson Mandela’s life about as much as we need another Marvel movie, but if there’s a good story expect many different versions. This miniseries follows Mandela from childhood to presidency, but focuses perhaps more than other similar projects on how the South African … Continue reading Madiba
A MAN DIED FOR A CRIME HE DIDN’T COMMIT… AND THE MURDERER IS STILL AMONG THEM. In the late 1950s, a stranger (Luke Treadaway) visits the Argyll family and tells them that their son who was convicted of murdering his mother and later died in prison must have been innocent. The third BBC Agatha Christie … Continue reading Ordeal by Innocence
THE QUEEN IS DEAD. LONG LIVE THE KING. After the death of Queen Elizabeth II, her son (Tim Pigott-Smith) is crowned king and starts a conflict with the Prime Minister over a controversial new law. Much like a Shakespeare play, this TV movie depicts intrigues within the British royal family and the dialogue is in … Continue reading King Charles III
The miniseries adaptation of Edward St. Aubyn’s semi-autobiographical novels becomes a perfect vehicle for Benedict Cumberbatch as we follow his wealthy, drug-addicted character through several decades, including his childhood in the 1960s when he was sexually molested by his father (Hugo Weaving), which set him off on his long journey of misery. Sounds unrelentingly tough, … Continue reading Patrick Melrose
