Articles written by the author
Review: Amazon's 'Hanna,' Genetically Modified for Streaming Video
“Hanna,” released in 2011, was not a film that called out for a remake or a sequel. It had a singular style, and a delicacy — despite its frequent beatdowns and gunbattles — that would suffer from duplication. Bookended by parallel killings, it was a self-contained chronicle of an obsessive and successful quest for revenge that left no important questions unanswered.In 'Turn Up Charlie,' the Manny Isn't Just a Man, He's Idris Elba
The new Netflix series “Turn Up Charlie” gets to the heart of Idris Elba, sitting at the intersection of his two passions: being a DJ and making heartwarming dramedies that reflect his working-class London origins.Review: 'The Boys' Deconstructs the Superhero, With a Light Touch
The team of Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen (producers) and Garth Ennis (comics writer) has given us AMC’s “Preacher,” the most inventive, audacious and purely entertaining comics-based series of the past few years. With “Preacher” on the way out — its final season begins Aug. 4 — the three are getting right back in the game, with a new show based on an Ennis comic, “The Boys,” coming to Amazon Prime Video on Friday.'South Side' and 'Sherman's Showcase': Two Flavors of Nostalgia
(Critic's Notebook)'Veronica Mars' and the One-Great-Season Debate
(Critic’s Pick)'Veronica Mars' and the One-Great-Season Debate
(Critic’s Pick)Review: Good Cop, Bad Cop, Crazy Cop in 'Line of Duty'
(Critic’s Pick)Review: 'Chernobyl,' the Disaster Movie
How do you dramatize a great big mess? The 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster is a subject full of gripping detail and historical and scientific import. But as a story, it’s hard to get your arms around — sprawling and repetitious, dependent on arcane particulars of physics and engineering, marked by failures to act and by large-scale action that accomplishes nothing.Review: In 'Dead to Me' on Netflix, Widows Make the Best BFFs
This week’s case study in the anxieties of contemporary television: “Dead to Me,” a new series on Netflix starring Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini as widows who meet cute at a grief support group.'Bosch' Is Back, Still on the Straight and Narrow
(Critic’s Pick)Review: Essential History in 'Reconstruction' on PBS
(Critic's Pick)John Mulaney and Seth Meyers Fondly Send Up Sondheim and He's Amused
Elaine Stritch melting down as she sings “The Ladies Who Lunch” over and over again, into the night. Record producer Thomas Z. Shepard telling her, “It’s just flaccid.” Stephen Sondheim, with elaborate patience, coaching a singer in the proper pronunciation of “bubi.”
John Mulaney and Seth Meyers Fondly Send Up Sondheim and He's Amused
Elaine Stritch melting down as she sings “The Ladies Who Lunch” over and over again, into the night. Record producer Thomas Z. Shepard telling her, “It’s just flaccid.” Stephen Sondheim, with elaborate patience, coaching a singer in the proper pronunciation of “bubi.”
'The Umbrella Academy' and 'Doom Patrol' Feature Strangely Similar Super-Teams
It doesn’t seem likely that Netflix and DC Universe, competitors in the field of subscription streaming video, get together to plan their schedules. So chalk it up to coincidence that Netflix is releasing “The Umbrella Academy” on the same day (Friday) that DC Universe is releasing “Doom Patrol,” while you note that the “Doom Patrol” comic books were a primary model, along with “X-Men,” for the “Umbrella Academy” comics.In Amazon's 'ABC Murders,' John Malkovich Is a Sad Poirot
Hercule Poirot is a flexible little fellow. He can be dapper and twinkling, as David Suchet played him for 24 years on television. He can be vigorously obsessive-compulsive, as Kenneth Branagh played him in “Murder on the Orient Express” in 2017.Review: 'I Am the Night' Stitches Together Los Angeles Neo-Noir Clichés
There’s no mystery surrounding how “I Am the Night,” TNT’s new truthy-crime miniseries, came to be. Director Patty Jenkins met and befriended Fauna Hodel, author of a memoir, “One Day She’ll Darken,” about her difficult youth. Not quite a decade later Jenkins made “Wonder Woman,” which made more than $821 million. Et voilà: “I Am the Night,” a long-gestating project “inspired by the life of Fauna Hodel” with Jenkins as a director and executive producer.Review: A Netflix Legal Thriller Weighs Genocide and Guilt
In “Black Earth Rising,” new Friday on Netflix, everyone is sick. The African president? Seizures. The war criminal? Brain tumors. The U.S. official? Ovarian cyst. The war-crimes lawyer? Prostate cancer.Review: In Showtime's 'Black Monday,' Financial Ruin, With Laughs
David Caspe turned 8 in 1986, a year (almost to the day) before the stock market crash that is the ostensible subject of his new Showtime series, “Black Monday.” I mention that because, watching the show, it often feels like you’re seeing the ‘80s through the eyes of a precocious youngster glued to the television. Designer jeans, Rae Dawn Chong, “Diff’rent Strokes,” Grandmaster Flash, Marion Barry, Michael Jackson, cocaine buffets. Cartoonish characters living large in cartoonish clothes.Review: 'Informer' Finds a Fresh Take on the Terrorism Thriller
As the television reports a terrorist attack on the continent, Raza Shar, the British-born son of Pakistani immigrants, prepares to go out for a night on the town in London. “Anyone picks on you, don’t be brave,” his father admonishes him. “Tell him you’re a Hindu.” Raza rolls his eyes, nods and recites, “Don’t freak, I’m a Sikh.”Review: 'You're the Worst' Heads Toward Happily Ever After. Maybe.
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