Getting such a close-up, personalizing look at one of the major figures of our time alone makes this a worthwhile watch. The succinct, clear elaboration of the three projects addressed in the three episodes – public sanitation, polio eradication, and nuclear power – is skillful. Ultimately, though, the takeaway is a negative one: Bill Gates […]
This documentary is sort of like Normal People, except the people are unattractive, uninteresting, inarticulate and not erotically charged. Barbora is a better painter than interviewer and it’s never clear what she’s looking for or finding in Bertil, who was so drugged he can’t remember why he stole her painting or what he did with […]
If by having Calle proclaim his undying love for Nina, though they’re both married to others, in the final scene, the makers of The Restaurant hoped to hook me for Season 2, they were sadly mistaken. Manipulate me once, shame on you; manipulate me every five minutes, forget it! What started out as a new and […]
What a relief, after watching soaps that have no ending (most recently, The Restaurant), to watch a 90-minute movie that has a premise and characters, develops them, builds dramatically and has a resolution – even if, as the opening credit warns us, it’s an “unsolved” mystery. Amy Ryan is sensational as the obsessed, albeit very […]
Much of the charm is supplied by the charming Rose Williams’s expressive face, voluptuous body and bottomless pit of dresses, which materialize out of the blue. The rest comes from the smoky Theo James as Sidney Parker, the love/hate cynosure of Rose’s Charlotte. We get to know a dozen other denizens of, and visitors to, […]
Planned Parenthood is the unsung hero of this wrenching story of 17-year-old Autumn Callahan, pregnant in Pennsylvania, who goes to New York City for an abortion. Sidney Flanigan plays Autumn as an awkward, affectless teen whose idea of conversation is “Whatever.” Her cousin who accompanies her has a bit more spirit, but there is a […]
A flawlessly told story of a young woman’s escape from the psychological and physical clutches of the ultraconservative Satmar Hasidic community in Brooklyn. In four episodes (with no sequel to follow), we watch Esty, played brilliantly by Shira Haas, grow from a shrinking and confused misfit into, somewhat improbably, a talented musician with great friends, […]
A gripping and revelatory 10-part docudrama about the abduction and brutal murder of a 15-year-old Palestinian by three West Bank settlers that gives voice to many, if not all, sides of the tragic conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. There are good people and not-so-good people on both sides, and the pressures tearing them apart are […]
After a stunning setup in the first three or four episodes, the 7-part series drifts toward soap opera territory, which is cemented when the season finale turns from a true finale to a teaser for Season Two. Part of my letdown may also be due to the diminished role of Kasia, the Polish barmaid, who […]
A remarkably effective, and affecting, four-part documentary on the rise and fall of Hillary Clinton. Despite the participation of Hillary herself, the series presented a balanced view of her career, such that the feelings of loss I experienced were for the political decades we’ve lived through, not for Hillary herself. I’ll never forgive her for […]
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