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Wednesday, April 15, 2020
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
The Night of
Another fantastic miniseries from HBO, a veritable churner of excellent TV productions.Nasir Khan is a regular kid from an immigrant family. One night, after unexpectedly spending the night with a mysterious girl, he wakes up covered in her blood. She's dead and he's obviously the prime suspect.
A hardened and callous police detective is put in charge of the case and doesn't see the need to dig too deep when the evidence seems to be pointing straight at the suspect in custody.
A typical ambulance-chaser takes him on as an easy client but soon starts to think that the police case isn't as air tight as they make it seem.
Meanwhile, Nasir has to adapt to life in prison and all the horrors and dangers that come with it. The question is not just whether his innocence can be proven, but whether he will survive long enough to make it out at all.
A fantastic show with a stellar cast led by Riz Ahmed that also includes John Turturro, Bill Camp, and Jeannie Berlin.
Grade: 10
Roots
I still remember reading Alex Haley's Roots in my teens and feeling quite moved by the story of Kunta Kinte, an African man kidnapped in Africa to be sold across the ocean as slave in the United States.
I also remember watching the first TV adaptation from the seventies, and how heartbreaking it was to see visually the brutality with which these people were treated that I had only imagined in my mind.
So when the History channel announced their own reimagining, I had to check it out.
The story is pretty much the same: a young African man is kidnapped and sold into slavery in the US state of Virginia. His ancestral pride runs deep, so bending him to the will of his new masters takes a lot of whip work.
He manages to escape, so when recaptured his punishment will be extreme. He is, after all, just like any other farm animal in the eyes of his captors.
And then there's Chicken George, another slave who becomes very valuable to his owner for his excellent skills at cockfighting training. Even so, he'll always be seen as nothing more chattel.
This show is at times hard to watch, but its value as an educational tool, especially to an American public who sometimes likes to ignore this ignominious part of its past, is enormous. A must watch.
Grade: 8
Mosaic
She loves parties and has many friends, but no special someone in her life. One day, she meets a would-be artist, whom she decides to employ in order to foster his creativity. Then, she meets a guy she finds very interesting, but is he being totally honest with her?
Shortly after, her sudden death and the following police investigation take the town by storm, especially given her fame and her considerable fortune.
A lot of intrigue lurks behind the scenes, and long-hidden secrets threaten to come out and make life difficult for several well-known locals.
Overall, this is a good whodunit, with cool locales and good acting. It's nice to see Stone in a new role after so many years of absence.
Grade: 7
Monday, April 13, 2020
Fear the Walking Dead
I'm a huge fan of the survivalist/post-apocalyptic/disaster genre and I find the whole universe created by The Walking Dead simply amazing. Fear the Walking Dead, the first spin-off from the original has been a mixed bag: season one was promising and interesting, while season two was frustrating and sometimes ridiculous.
Season three, fortunately, brings the "fun" back with a new baddie embodied by Daniel Sharman. You can tell that he can be dangerous, but his motives might have a raison d'être.
When the action moves to his father's ranch, the promise of stability is enough to give Madison hope, but she's also uneasy with the new group of survivors.
Eventually, as one would expect, the community is tested by threats not just of the undead kind, but from both other humans and the natural world.
The new locale once again raises hope that FTWD is on the path to longevity. The explosive season finale promises better things yet to come.
Grade - Season 3: 8
Season four starts out with the arrival on the scene of The Walking Dead's Morgan (Lennie James, great actor), which is not good news as far as I'm concerned for two reasons.
One, I stopped liking Morgan, who initially was an interesting and tormented character, when he embraced his "We don't kill" philosophy. I'm sorry, but you now live in a world without law and order, where bad guys like the Governor and Negan will have no qualms and will stop at nothing to subjugate others. If you refuse to fight fire with fire, in that world, you won't survive long, which renders his character utopian and therefore not believable.
Two, when this spin-off was announced, the fans feared diluting the TWD brand, so the producers went to great lengths to pledge that FTWD would be its own show, untethered from TWD by both space (it started out in Los Angeles, so on the opposite side of the country) and time (it started out just prior to the onset of the epidemic, while TWD starts our well into Armageddon). Alas, having Morgan join this show now recants on those promises, even though I freely admit that if I really loved the character I'd be more forgiving...
This season we also say goodbye to the show's main hero, Madison Clark, brought to life by the amazing Kim Dickens. I had no idea she had left the show, so her demise was totally unexpected and shocking. It also reinforced my belief that the way Rick Grimes left TWD, without dying, deprived the fans of the finality we usually get on this show.
I've read that it wasn't Dickens' choice to leave the show (like in Andrew Lincoln's case) so I can only hope that the producers did not decided to kill her character off to make room for the arrival of Morgan. Otherwise, it would be really tragic.
Anyway, Morgan is not the only new addition. A seemingly solitary cowboy looking for his lost love and a mysterious collector of people's stories soon join him only to be intercepted by the FTWD cast.
The season is quite good. A new group of survivors, the Vultures, poses a simmering threat that Madison and company have to figure out how to endure. The stakes mount for everyone involved.
There's little time to mourn for Madison, however, since when the two groups of survivors join forces, a new threat emerges from the unlikeliest of characters.
All in all, with stakes this high, action galore, and constantly changing environments, it might be FTWD's best season to date.
Grade - Season 4: 8
Season five starts out with a plane crash, and the action keeps up the pace from there on. The new locale, however, soon reveals itself anything buy hospitable to life.
More new characters are introduced, including Dwight from TWD after he was cast out by Daryl following Negan's demise.
The group keeps picking up survivors on the road and grows into a caravan, which makes it an easier target for a new foe.
Unbeknownst to all, however, an even bigger threat is closing in, with enough firepower to take everyone on and come out on top. But are they really bad or maybe somewhat good? Not so easy to tell.
Meanwhile, Al finds out some troubling details about a far away group of survivors that might be connected to Rick Grimes' survival (and the second spin-off, coming later this year, The Walking Dead: World Beyond).
One thing is sure, this show has definitely gotten better with the passage of time.
Grade - Season 5: 8
Season three, fortunately, brings the "fun" back with a new baddie embodied by Daniel Sharman. You can tell that he can be dangerous, but his motives might have a raison d'être.When the action moves to his father's ranch, the promise of stability is enough to give Madison hope, but she's also uneasy with the new group of survivors.
Eventually, as one would expect, the community is tested by threats not just of the undead kind, but from both other humans and the natural world.
The new locale once again raises hope that FTWD is on the path to longevity. The explosive season finale promises better things yet to come.
Grade - Season 3: 8
Season four starts out with the arrival on the scene of The Walking Dead's Morgan (Lennie James, great actor), which is not good news as far as I'm concerned for two reasons.One, I stopped liking Morgan, who initially was an interesting and tormented character, when he embraced his "We don't kill" philosophy. I'm sorry, but you now live in a world without law and order, where bad guys like the Governor and Negan will have no qualms and will stop at nothing to subjugate others. If you refuse to fight fire with fire, in that world, you won't survive long, which renders his character utopian and therefore not believable.
Two, when this spin-off was announced, the fans feared diluting the TWD brand, so the producers went to great lengths to pledge that FTWD would be its own show, untethered from TWD by both space (it started out in Los Angeles, so on the opposite side of the country) and time (it started out just prior to the onset of the epidemic, while TWD starts our well into Armageddon). Alas, having Morgan join this show now recants on those promises, even though I freely admit that if I really loved the character I'd be more forgiving...
This season we also say goodbye to the show's main hero, Madison Clark, brought to life by the amazing Kim Dickens. I had no idea she had left the show, so her demise was totally unexpected and shocking. It also reinforced my belief that the way Rick Grimes left TWD, without dying, deprived the fans of the finality we usually get on this show.
I've read that it wasn't Dickens' choice to leave the show (like in Andrew Lincoln's case) so I can only hope that the producers did not decided to kill her character off to make room for the arrival of Morgan. Otherwise, it would be really tragic.
Anyway, Morgan is not the only new addition. A seemingly solitary cowboy looking for his lost love and a mysterious collector of people's stories soon join him only to be intercepted by the FTWD cast.
The season is quite good. A new group of survivors, the Vultures, poses a simmering threat that Madison and company have to figure out how to endure. The stakes mount for everyone involved.
There's little time to mourn for Madison, however, since when the two groups of survivors join forces, a new threat emerges from the unlikeliest of characters.
All in all, with stakes this high, action galore, and constantly changing environments, it might be FTWD's best season to date.
Grade - Season 4: 8
Season five starts out with a plane crash, and the action keeps up the pace from there on. The new locale, however, soon reveals itself anything buy hospitable to life.More new characters are introduced, including Dwight from TWD after he was cast out by Daryl following Negan's demise.
The group keeps picking up survivors on the road and grows into a caravan, which makes it an easier target for a new foe.
Unbeknownst to all, however, an even bigger threat is closing in, with enough firepower to take everyone on and come out on top. But are they really bad or maybe somewhat good? Not so easy to tell.
Meanwhile, Al finds out some troubling details about a far away group of survivors that might be connected to Rick Grimes' survival (and the second spin-off, coming later this year, The Walking Dead: World Beyond).
One thing is sure, this show has definitely gotten better with the passage of time.
Grade - Season 5: 8
Friday, April 10, 2020
American Horror Story: 1984
The last season of American Horror Story was subtitled 1984 and it was the most boring and ridiculous to date. I'd almost call it pathetic.I really struggled with it because I love the series and am always looking forward to it, but watching this one turned into a chore, something I had to do just so I wouldn't miss out on any potential connections or revelations to the anthology as a whole.
When a serial killer begins terrorizing Los Angeles, a disparate group of friends decide to escape for the summer to work as counselors at a remote campsite in the woods called Camp Redwood.
Once there, they come to find out that the camp was reopening now after many years since a murderous spree forced it to shut down. Perhaps, they won't be able to escape a serial killer after all.
That synopsis is only for half the season, because when it looks like it's all over, it sort of rewinds and starts all over (via a gimmick) with another story about Camp Redwood. Eventually, the two are rejoined, but it's all very confusing and convenient and trite.
A good description for this season would be cheesy, and campy. So, if you like camp you might love it. If, like me, you do not, it's a drag.
Ryan Murphy is a very imaginative producer, but his penchant for casting people he likes in real life (like Lady Gaga or Stevie Nicks) doesn't always pay off. Lady Gaga was pretty lame (or even awful) in Hotel, while she was at least okay in Roanoke. Nicks seems to only really be written into a scene in order to give her a chance to sing one of her hit songs from back in the day. Plenty of more talented actresses would have fared a lot better in their roles.
This time around, accomplished Olympian Gus Kenworthy was hired to fill the role of the hot jock who shows off his stellar body. Don't get me wrong, he's a nice guy, does have a stellar body, and is super easy on the eyes, but acting isn't his forte. I don't want to be mean, but he just wasn't good in any scene. Even the smallish role he got here was too big. A cameo would have been plenty, really.
Hopefully the next season will be better.
Grade - Season 9: 3
Thursday, April 09, 2020
Big Little Lies
It centers around three women and their lives in the rarefied and insular community of Monterey, California. But they are hardly alone, as there are spouses, children, their friends, their friends' parents, and more.
Some are friends, some are frenemies. Some are entitled, some are just trying to fit in.
The one thing that perhaps unites them all is that appearances are hardly what they seem. Not by a long shot.
One night tragedy strikes. Where will the chips fall?
Grade - Season 1: 9
The realignment in relationships caused by the above mentioned tragedy has resulted in a close knit group of friends.
They all seemingly have each others' backs, but a police investigation into what happened and the grief-stricken victim's mother create worsening strains.
Will the friendships survive? Will the truth come out? What will be the consequences of what does come to light?
Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, and Shailene Woodley got top billing, but the cast includes a whole stable of great actors: Laura Dern, Zoë Kravitz, Adam Scott, James Tupper, Jeffrey Nordling, Robin Weigert, and a fantastic Alexander Skarsgård.
With the addition of the peerless Meryl Streep in season two, how can you not watch it?
Grade - Season 2: 9
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