THE CHILDREN ACT (no distrib):  It’s not intended as disparagement to Ian McEwan’s novel and screenplay adaptation, or to Richard Eyre’s film, that THE CHILDREN ACT feels much of the time like it could be the pilot for a high-toned television series featuring Emma Thompson as a compassionate jurist specializing in family law who […]

There are certain inevitabilities at Sundance, apart from snow:  something will go wrong (after I waited on line for 2 hours on opening day, the box office discovered that it had lost one of my passes), and no matter how carefully one chooses one’s film selections, some of the hottest titles will be missed.  For […]

  It was clear from the pilot of NBC’s GOOD GIRLS that the series had a trio of strong assets and some major challenges.  The strengths were its three stars, Christina Hendricks, Retta and Mae Whitman, each of them thoroughly capable of anchoring a show on her own, and together an Avengers-like powerhouse of warmth, […]

  THE REPORT (Amazon):  Scott Z. Burns’s political expose is important and engrossing, but it’s composed of so much exposition that it may have trouble finding a mainstream audience.  (Which made Amazon’s decision to pay $14M to acquire it somewhat surprising.)  The film is concerned with two overlapping cover-ups over a period of years, set […]

  BIG LITTLE LIES:  Sunday 9PM on HBO There are two notable additions to the second season of HBO’s BIG LITTLE LIES–one of whom has understandably been talked about much more than the other–as well as a subtraction.  The celebrated newcomer, of course, is Meryl Streep as Mary Louise, mother of the deceased Perry (Alexander […]

  PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN (Focus/Universal – April 17):  Emerald Fennell’s feature-film writing/directing debut has antecedents as old as the 1973 TV-movie The Girl Most Likely To… (co-written by Joan Rivers) and as recent as Killing Eve (for which Fennell served as Season 2 showrunner), with the added frisson of a #MeToo-driven storyline.  Cassie (Carey Mulligan) […]

  JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH (Warners/HBO Max – February 12):  The title refers to the FBI informant Bill O’Neal (played here by LaKeith Stanfield) and the Illinois Black Panthers leader Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya).  Although Hampton was only 21 years old, he was so charismatic and successful–he had put together a local coalition that […]

  THE INSPECTION (A24 – November 14):  Back in 1983, Robert Altman directed the film version of David Rabe’s play Streamers, about a Vietnam-era boot camp that turned even more violent and vicious with the catalyst of one recruit’s closeted homosexuality.  Elegance Bratton’s The Inspection tells a similar story for the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” […]