In French director Emmanuel Courcol’s comedy drama, The Marching Band (En fanfare), the celebrated orchestra conductor, Thibaut Desormeaux (Benjamin Lavernhe) is diagnosed with leukemia. To his surprise, the tests to identify a bone marrow donor reveal that he was adopted. The search for his brother leads him to Jimmy (Pierre Lottin), …
Paul Feig gave us an entertaining, sexy mystery with the 2018 movie A Simple Favor. He’s back, along with Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively, with the sequel Another Simple Favor, currently streaming on Prime Video, but where the first was a clever look at motherhood and being a girl’s girl, Another …
My optimism about the direction of season 4 of Hacks was up with episode 4, but it immediately dropped again while watching episode 5, Clickable Face. I have a little bit of sunk cost going on here, but goodness, this season is feeling like a slog, and that’s a serious disappointment for a …
Everybody clearly had a wonderful time making this episode of Carême, in which they either very politely make vicious threats to each other, or create a colossal mess. Best of all, nudity! Sorry, this is France: nudité. One bottom belongs to a male extra who has evidently just participated in …
The opening episodes of season 4 of Hacks left this critic feeling a bit cold, but episode 4, I Love LA, is the first time that I’ve felt a bit of hope for the remainder of the season. Hacks has been one of my favorite comedies since it premiered four …
Believe it or not, there was a time when the world was convinced of a global technological shutdown as computers had not been configured to deal with the year 2000, which was known as the Y2K bug! It was a time of fear, panic, and anxiety for many, and not …
What happens throughout this episode is, in the very best sense of the word, adult. Carême’s understanding that people’s motivations and people’s desires do not necessarily reflect their best selves is unknown in American art. But the French are perhaps more capable of acknowledging the gap between their best and …
The sumptuous Carême hits two basic needs for a high-end television series. One is for sex, but the other is rarer in fictional television: food porn. This combination is an absolutely wonderful idea, because god knows our appetite for something good to eat doesn’t always get its due from a …
In recent years, there has been a massive influx of movies and TV series that showcase the reality of the entertainment industry and how youngsters navigate the world of showbiz. Most importantly, these titles exhibit how young people navigate through life while trying to achieve something, which makes them raw …
As Makeup Department Head on the Hulu hit Deli Boys, Nesrin Ismail is behind some of the most interesting looks on television. She’s an expert in both beauty and special effects makeup and puts all that to use on the comedy about fish out of water drug kingpins in an …
Hacks season 4 continues to underwhelm as it comes on with episode 3, What Happens in Vegas. Despite two absolutely electric leads and a primary story that has the ability to highlight some of the inequities in late-night television, specifically, and women in entertainment more broadly, it continues to pit Ava …
The Max Original comedy series Hacks is back for season 4, and this critic couldn’t be happier. Jean Smart’s renaissance has been an absolute delight, and of her many roles, Deborah Vance is a favorite. While the second season ended in a way that allowed the show a satisfying end …
Movies (or television) about the entertainment industry can prove challenging to produce. In some cases, they can feel like nothing more than a vanity project. Thankfully, stories in that vein, such as The Player and The Larry Sanders Show have proved this formula’s effectiveness with the right talent involved. Thirty-three …
Tolga Karaçelik is a name well known to international audiences and soon to be United States audiences as well. Psycho Killer: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer is a black comedy and the writer/director’s fouth film. It’s his latest after the Sundance-lauded …
Zeitgeisty trends combine in Peacock: how it mocks the vapid wealthy with lives so comfortable they must manufacture problems for themselves is clearly inspired by the work of Ruben Östlund. The problem is that social satire works best with a strong opinion about the behaviour being mocked. Are you teasing …
One of the best films ever made is Planes, Trains and Automobiles. It had a lot of comedic elements throughout, and it balanced comedy with bits of humanity. The 1987 film features a bitter man who becomes worn down emotionally by an incessantly friendly traveler. As the movie unfolds, the …
I’ve mentioned this countless times throughout my years of film criticism: not every movie needs to be narratively and thematically profound, impacting audiences so deeply with philosophical messages that their lives are forever changed. Cinema is, among many things, entertainment. So, it’s no surprise when films like Freaky Tales emerge, …
Karan Kandhari’s Sister Midnight seems, upon its opening, to be a quotidian domestic drama. Uma (Radhika Apte) has one key problem taking over her life: she and her new husband, Gobal (Ashok Parthak), are not at all compatible. Those who arranged their marriage failed to account for fundamental differences in …
In 1970, Judy Blume’s eponymous novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was published. The book, a grounded curtail pull on teenage sexuality, was met with indignation by certain literary factions of the USA, going as far as banning the book in certain states over its discussion of menstruation …
This year’s Slamdance Festival featured a film that perfectly blended the horror and humor genres and gave viewers a unique film to cherish on. Yes, we are talking about Woody Bess’ Portal To Hell. This film twists the age-old Faustian bargain into something fresh, unsettling, and deeply thought-provoking. The movie …