Imagine the most demeaning job you can think of, despite the status of working as assistant (what used to be called “secretary”) to the ceo of a glamorous entertainment company. Then imagine a movie that consists entirely of living through one day in that job, exclusively from the assistant’s point of view. I kept waiting […]
Wonderful performances by Jamie Foxx, Michael Jordan and Brie Larson make this a pleasure to watch. Even not having read the book, there were no surprises, and if the story were not true you’d criticize the screenwriter for a lack of imagination. But what’s wrong with a happy ending that makes you cry? And events […]
For six episodes this is an enthralling intellectual chess match between adversaries that are equally likeable, featuring a crew of robbers who are uniformly engaging. If the plan succeeds, no one is to get hurt and no one will suffer the loss of the millions the robbers are minting for themselves. But then around episode […]
A must-see for all Andy Samberg fans, not so much for anyone else. OK, Cristin Milioti is pretty good, too. But the rest – plot, setting, secondary characters – is pretty puerile, a bad takeoff on Groundhog Day. The movie lurches from gag to gag, with no direction home.
We watched this in homage to a great American the day after he died. As a documentary, it wasn’t much: familiar clips of the civil rights struggle–still shocking and heartbreaking–mixed with contemporary film of Lewis greeting and hugging well-wishers, with about a fifty-year hole in the middle. The only new piece for me was a […]
I have to admit I don’t know what this film was about, although Siri’s comparison to the previous film by Kore-eda, Shopkeepers, was apt: what constitutes a family. Ethan Hawke seemed to have stumbled in from Before Midnight, in which he was equally lost; the husband Pierre seemed left over from Boudu Saved from Drowning. […]
A remarkable inside look at the operations of a New York hospital that happens to be two blocks from our apartment. At eight episodes it was a bit too long, but we certainly got to know the four doctors who were featured, some more impressive than others. The willingness of so many patients, including ones […]
A four-episoder about Jeffrey Epstein that is unpleasant, repetitive, overlong and maddeningly uninformative. We get dozens of the “what” – “Then he turned over…” – but none of the why or how and very little of the who. For years he preyed on unfortunate teenage girls, but their stories are the same. How did he […]
First, let me say I thought the production for the screen was sensational. This was so much better than seeing the play on stage – although I admit when we saw it on Broadway early in its run our seats were far away and we couldn’t distinguish many of the lyrics. On the TV screen, […]
A remarkable ten-episode study of Michael Jordan and his championship Chicago Bulls teams – remarkable both for the inside look it offers at professional athletes and the ambivalent picture it provides of the man who offered this access. I was neither a fan nor particular follower of MJ during his career, but this documentary clearly […]
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