In 19 memorable episodes that aired over the course of a dozen years and across two different shows — CBS‘ The Good Wife and its streaming spinoff The Good Fight — Carrie Preston played Elsbeth Tascioni, a brilliant lawyer whose eccentric behavior constantly threw off the heroes of those dramas. …
Read More »'American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders' Examines Journalist's Tragic Death, Perils of Sleuthing
Obsession works like an addiction. You feed it and feed it, falling down rabbit holes, pursuing your prey with single-minded intensity. You chase the dragon, until you are indistinguishable from the beast itself and the rest of the world slowly becomes a blurry background. The new Netflix docuseries American Conspiracy: …
Read More »'Shōgun' Gives a Classic TV Miniseries a 'Game of Thrones'-Level Makeover
James Clavell’s historical epic novel Shōgun was first adapted for television back in 1980. It starred Richard Chamberlain as John Blackthorne, an English sailor who gets caught up in a Japanese civil war in the early 1600s, and Japanese cinema legend Toshirô Mifune as Toranaga, a feudal lord at odds …
Read More »'Drive-Away Dolls': Ethan Coen's Queer Buddy Comedy Is a Car-Wreck
A road trip. A mix-up. A fast-talking hero, prone to tossing off bewilderingly verbose sentences. Some criminals who run the gamut from eccentric to psychotic to painfully inept. (Sometimes, they’re all three at once.) Dangerously sudden violence. Dangerously dark humor. Dangerously outrageous hairdos. The feeling that you’re watching a vintage …
Read More »Did We Really Need Netflix's Live-Action 'Avatar: The Last Airbender'?
M. Night Shyamlan’s 2010 film The Last Airbender may be the gold standard for how not to translate a beloved property from one medium to another. Though Shyamalan covered much of the plot of the first season of the animated fantasy epic Avatar: The Last Airbender, he misunderstood nearly everything …
Read More »'Dune: Part Two' Is Bigger, Bolder — and Yes, Even Better — Than Part One
So, where were we? Oh, right. House Atreides, the noble family that oversaw the rule of the spice-rich planet Arrakis, is no more. Its patriarch, Duke Leto, is dead. His heir Paul Atreides, and the young man’s mother Lady Jessica, are both presumed to have been killed as well. House …
Read More »'Constellation': In Space, No One Can Hear You Snore
The new Apple TV+ drama Constellation has atmosphere to spare. What it lacks is a story to live up to its creepy vibe. Created by British TV vet Peter Harness, Constellation stars Noomi Rapace as Jo, a Swedish astronaut engaged in a long mission on the International Space Station. An …
Read More »'Einstein and the Bomb' Hits What 'Oppenheimer' Left Out
The awards juggernaut Oppenheimer provides a blockbuster treatment of one scientist’s profoundly mixed feelings regarding his role in the creation of the atomic bomb, and its subsequent use in destroying the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now Netflix has dropped a much slimmer but thematically similar docudrama, Einstein and …
Read More »'Life & Beth': Amy Schumer's Semi-Autobiographical Comedy Returns Better Than Ever
In 2022, Amy Schumer starred in two different series. One was the long-delayed fifth season of her sketch comedy show Inside Amy Schumer, which had been absent for six years while Schumer focused on family and on other professional opportunities. The other was Hulu’s Life & Beth, a semi-autobiographical dramedy …
Read More »Was Her Family Member the Zodiac Killer? 'The Truth About Jim' Follows One Woman's Quest for Answers
True crime documentaries are so ubiquitous that the subgenres now have subgenres. You’ll find countless serial killer stories, with various wrinkles to distinguish one from the next. And lately we’ve seen an influx of projects featuring citizen investigators sifting through their own family histories — Great Photo, Lovely Life, and …
Read More »