AppleTV+ seems to be carving out a nice niche for itself in prestige period miniseries that combine the holy trinity of the genre: star-studded casts, rich production design, and a topic of historical importance delivered with a glossy respect. Franklin, created by Kirk Ellis – perhaps previously best known for creating HBO’s magnificent miniseries John Adams – fits the …
How do you illustrate for the screen a life lived with physical limitations? You illustrate the life of the mind. In this biopic of writer Flannery O’Connor (Maya Hawke), the inventor of the ‘southern Gothic’ genre of literature, director Ethan Hawke (also the producer, co-writer, and Ms. Hawke’s father) chose to enact sequences from …
Mark Twain once said that, “History does not repeat itself. It rhymes.” The Planet of the Apes series, now on its tenth installment, embodies this. The original 1968 Charlton Heston vehicle ended with his character Taylor in a state of despair at realizing the world of ‘damn dirty apes’ that he crash-landed on was …
Wes Ball’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a largely thrilling although imperfect continuation of the franchise. The Planet of the Apes franchise has become a staple in cinematic history. Starting with the 1968 film of the same name, audiences were swept away to another world. That film transported viewers …
Satirical and meta comedies can be hard to deliver effectively. Classics like Monty Python and The Holy Grail, The Truman Show, and the overall work of Mel Brooks revolutionized the concept. Now, those comedies have been ushered in for a new generation. Films like Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Cocaine Bear, and Weird: The Al Yankovic Story took …
Ryan Gosling can do no wrong when picking roles, as each film he stars in becomes something special. From comedies such as Crazy, Stupid, Love, and The Nice Guys to more dramatic roles such as in Lars and the Real Girl, The Notebook, and La La Land, every film is memorable, mainly due to his acting. With a slew …
Author/Vietnamese-American Professor Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel The Sympathizer is a spy novel unlike any other. The Pulitzer Prize-winning book balances many different themes and ideas. Following an unnamed narrator, it tells a story that is equal parts political thriller, romance, and occasional comedy. That helped make the novel a resonatory and powerful piece of …
Directed by Hannah Marks (Don’t Make Me Go) and written by Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker (Love, Simon), Turtles All the Way Down is the adaptation of John Green’s novel of the same title. It tells the story of Aza Holmes (Isabela Merced), a teenager who strives to be a good daughter, …
We’re in an age of Star Wars saturation. With each passing year, there are more entries in the franchise than ever, which is more and more of a mixed bag. Last year, one of the new entries was Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, a series of six shorts telling some of the …
Apple TV+ knows its strengths, focusing on the science fiction, comedy, and drama sections on its home page. Ted Lasso has noticeably been a huge hit, and seeing Apple TV+ lean into some of the funniest actors of our day has been a boon for them. Acapulco is the latest success for the streamer. …
It might be a little much to claim that Ryan Gosling is singlehandedly reinventing American masculinity onscreen. On the other hand, he has followed up his global triumph in Barbie (and winning of the Oscar in all our hearts with his performance of I’m Just Ken at the Academy Awards) with The Fall Guy, during which he …
I’m as much a fan of rom-coms as of any other genre mix. As long as the narrative doesn’t fall into the usual formulaic traps and quickly becomes just another cheap, forgettable variation of a story watched and rewatched countless times, I always find myself open-minded and ready to be …
This past Sunday, the latest episode of Tracker with Justin Hartley as the “rewardist” Colter Shaw aired on CBS. Titled Into the Wild and written by Elwood Reid and directed by Larry Teng, this episode took Colter all the way across the country to Idaho. (See you later, Aurora.) Into the Wild with Tracker This episode was interesting in a …
The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan is a 2023 action-adventure film, serving as the opening installment of a two-part series inspired by Alexandre Dumas’s 1844 novel, The Three Musketeers. This French adaptation directed by Martin Bourboulon and written by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière chronicles the journey of D’Artagnan (François Civil), a …
It doesn’t take much to convince cinephiles like me to visit the film theater. In fact, it’s more the opposite: it takes very strong reasons to keep me away. My personal methodology of trying to watch movies without any prior knowledge remains extremely strict, so for Boy Kills World, the presence of Bill Skarsgård (It) was more than enough to spark interest in a basic …
There are times when we get to watch a film that makes us realize what our future might look like and paints a very dark picture in front of us. In Alex Garland’s Civil War, viewers find themselves in the middle of a gruesome fight between the people and the state. Throughout …
Everybody loves a good monster movie. From the dawn of cinema, the unknown creatures of the underwater realm, dark woods, forests, and otherwise uncharted areas that might care to pay us a visit in the nighttime hours have long been the source of many a child’s lost hours of sleep. …
Every so often, a movie comes along that is so unique, original, and sometimes wildly bizarre that they’re almost indescribable; there’s not much out there to compare them to. For instance, trying to explain to someone what A24’s Everything Everywhere All At Once is like or even the Noah Baumbach film White Noise on Netflix, they’re …
Challengers was one of the most anticipated films of 2023, but it was postponed to the following year due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. However, the enormous anticipation for Luca Guadagnino’s new movie (Call Me by Your Name, Suspiria, Bones and All) never faded, especially considering it stars one of Hollywood’s biggest young celebrities of today, Zendaya (Dune: …
It’s been six or seven years (not that we’re counting) since White Collar was on the air on Netflix and ten years since the show finished airing on the USA Network. As of April 1st, the show is back in the streamer’s library. Starring Matt Bomer as debonair former criminal Neal Caffrey and Tim DeKay as …