FOR THE PEOPLE:  Tuesday 10PM on ABC – In the Queue Things may change when Shonda Rhimes moves to Netflix, but in her ABC incarnation, her name on a project creates a certain set of expectations, which the new FOR THE PEOPLE mostly satisfies.  The pilot for the series, created by former Scandal writer/producer […]

  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” […]

  THE BURIAL (MGM/Amazon – Oct. 13):  A yarn that’s also a true story.  Jeremiah O’Keefe (Tommy Lee Jones) was the owner of a family-run, regional Mississippi business that for decades had offered funeral services and burial insurance to its customers.  When Jeremiah’s finances took a turn, he made a deal with a conglomerate headed […]

> THE THREE STOOGES:  Watch It At Home – More Nyuks Than You’d Expect The Farrelly Brothers’ THE THREE STOOGES is better than its marketing campaign let on, and while that would be more impressive if the trailer and ad materials hadn’t been almost unwatchably bad, it still makes for a welcome relief. The quick-cut […]