Brad Pitt is an American career officer charged with winding down the war in Afghanistan in the satirical War Machine, a fictionalized version of the non-fiction book by Michael Hastings reworked by Australian director/screenwriter David Michod (Animal Kingdom) as a black comedy of bureaucratic dysfunction and military arrogance. “At its best, War Machine crackles with […]
Disney’s live-action remake of their classic animated musical Beauty and the Beast, starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens, the action-packed sequel John Wick: Chapter 2 with Keanu Reeves, and the animated spin-off / superhero spoof The LEGO Batman Movie highlight the June calendar of offerings arriving on cable and streaming video-on-demand. There’s also the science […]
The new Netflix original documentary mini-series The Keepers delves into the decades-old unsolved murder: Sister Cathy, who taught at a parochial school in Baltimore until her disappearance in 1969 at the age of 26. The series has drawn comparisons to Making a Murderer, the binge-worthy 2015 Netflix true crime original, but Los Angeles Time critic […]
Kathryn Hahn, Griffun Dunne, and Kevin Bacon star in the new series I Love Dick, a comedy from Transparent creator Jill Soloway and playwright Sarah Grubbins. “It’s an experience as much as a story: arresting, disorienting and provocative,” writes The New York Times TV critic James Poniewozik, who describes the show as “art TV about […]
Quentin Tarantino’s challenge with Jackie Brown (1997) was how make someone else’s story—Elmore Leonard’s Rum Punch, to be specific—his own. His solution: set it in his own reference riddled world. From the film’s opening shot—a quote from The Graduate overlaid with early seventies movie lettering and set to a Motown tune—we know we’re in Tarantino […]
Pay-Per-View / Video-On-Demand Matthew McConaughey strikes Gold as entrepreneur Kenny Wells in this tale of American adventurism inspired by a true story that became an international financial scandal. Edgar Ramirez, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Corey Stoll co-star (R). Also on DVD and Blu-ray and at Redbox. Asghar Farhadi’s Iranian drama The Salesman, which won the […]
It looks like Hulu has finally found its signature original series. The new original series The Handmaid’s Tale, based on the novel by Margaret Atwood and starring Elisabeth Moss as an enslaved women struggling to retain her identity in an oppressive dystopian dictatorship, is smart, compelling, and unnerving. The book was made into a well-meaning […]
Logan, the dark take on the superhero movie with Hugh Jackman as an aging, dying Wolverine, and the witty horror film and race satire Get Out, the directorial debut of Jordan Peele, highlight the May calendar of offerings arriving on cable and streaming video-on-demand. Also arriving in May are The Salesman, which won the Academy […]
Bill Nye Saves the World brings the Science Guy back to TV via streaming with a Netflix original series. The new show, for adults and kids alike, mixes comedy, education, cool experiments, celebrity guests, and panel discussions on hot-button issues. 13 episodes. “The new series is pitched primarily toward adults, casting the bow-tie-wearing Nye as […]
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return revives the cult comedy show built around robot puppets heckling bad movies with Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt as the new mad scientists (“the mads,” as the fans say) and Jonah Ray as their human test subject. “The deceptively ingenious structure of the show offers a double experience, of […]
