Author and writer Dennis Lehane has carved a niche in the crime and thriller genres. His credits include novels such as Live by Night and Gone Baby Gone, as well as screenplays like 2014’s underrated film The Drop. Lehane has even dipped his toe into television work with series such …
Upon the news that Murderbot has been renewed for a second series, we can all breathe more easily. This first series is the demonstration of how the Pinocchio became a real boy, or in this case, a genderless sentient construct that, without its armor, looks like an augmented human. But …
Finally we have reached the episode named after the novel from which the TV show Murderbot is adapted, although it’s only the penultimate one. The ways in which the differing plot strands twist together is incredibly impressive, not least in the amount of damage Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård) suffers: the face …
Brothers Chris and Paul Weitz are maintaining the breakneck pacing of this show with what seems like the greatest of ease. As the mysterious enemy finally becomes clearer, there is at least enough respite to allow Bharadwaj (Tamara Podemski) to operate on Gurathin (David Dastmalchian), and for the throuple subplot …
Another action-packed episode, and packed with more than one kind of action, if you know what I mean. It’s Arada the biologist (Tattiawna Jones) who realises quicker than the others what the two creatures are doing on top of the hopper, which has glass panels in its roof. Murderbot (Alexander …
This mid-series run of Murderbot is some of the tightest episodes of television in a while. This episode also contains a great deal of humour, backrubs, some awfully graphic surgery, and then some even more graphic violence. The tonal shifts flow more naturally than that description sounds, which is especially …
Before the review begins: an apology. I originally misgendered Murderbot in my reviews of the previous four episodes, which have now been corrected. A publicist got in touch to inform us that Murderbot has no gender; I should not have presumed the gender of the human actor playing it had …
One of the neatest tricks Carême has pulled over the course of this fine first season is erasing Napoleon. He is there, when he needs to be, but he never speaks and the face of the actor playing him is rarely shown. The focus on the power games swirling around …
After all the machinations of the previous episode it’s no wonder this course of Carême chooses a different focus for all its power struggles. The episode takes place entirely within Talleyrand’s (Jérémie Renier) estate and revolves around Hortense (Lily Taieb) unexpectedly going into labour. For those of you not keeping …
Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon has been one of the most fascinating workshops for the medium since their 2009 feature debut, The Secret of Kells. Wolfwalkers by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart is only their fifth feature since Kells. Nearly every work of theirs went on to get an Academy …
In Deaf President Now!, Nyle DiMarco and Academy Award-winning director Davis Guggenheim join forces to tell a milestone in the education of the deaf community. In 1988, at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C, the first and only deaf people’s university in the world, students gathered to protest. The board of …
At the outset, F1 was already a hard film to review. Similar to Ezra Miller, the longtime actor Brad Pitt’s personal life has become a conflicting topic, especially since his family life hit the news. At the same time, F1 director Joseph Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick is one of the …
Now here is where things get very good. There’s a sense of humour in Escape Velocity Protocol which we haven’t seen before, just as we haven’t seen violence this serious in Murderbot before. But the main issue here is the dichotomy between the world as Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård) understands it …
We’re off to the races! Can free planets handle themselves? Can Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård) stand to be “stuck with these people and their pheromones in a small craft”? Although for a being that claims not to care about people, it sure does spend a lot of time paying close attention …
The six hippie scientists from the non-corporation planet that Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård) is tasked with protecting on their mining mission are as follows: Mensah (Noma Dumezweni), the admired mission leader, parent of seven, and terraforming expert who is secretly prone to panic attacks Pin-Lee (Sabrina Wu), the non-binary lawyer and …
The eponymous hero of this new TV show Murderbot, based on the first of The Murderbot Diaries series of novels by Martha Wells, is strictly speaking a cyborg. It – though sometimes its clients misgender it as a he – has a metallic structure covered with cloned human flesh, including …
Well. This is the darkest episode yet of Carême and where almost all of the various plot points from earlier in the season have finally converged. Our hero Antonin (Benjamin Voisin) finally has it drilled into his skull not only that actions have consequences, but also that he is not …
This episode of Carême pays off some serious buildup, but the important thing is this is when our cutie hero finally grows up. Antonin (Benjamin Voisin) finally comes to appreciate how his skills as the best cook in France mean that he is not just a pawn on the chessboard …
On the one hand, this is the weakest episode yet of Carême, full of characterisations that are regrettable cliche. On the other, director Matias Boucard, cinematographer Julio Ramón Ribeyro and editor Jean-Baptiste Beaudoin managed to create a mood that makes palpable both the price of power and the cost of …
In early 2021, the then-President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, announced that American troops would withdraw from Afghanistan. As part of their strategy in the war on terror after the 9/11 attacks in NYC, the U.S. troops would arrive in 2001 and stay until 2021. In the …