CW’s THE 100 has set its bar fairly high fover the years, and on those terms, Season 5 wasn’t quite up to par.  The central crisis–our protagonists had to face off against a pack of vicious thawed-out convicts–was uncomfortably close to a Direct-to-VOD premise, and the climactic arrival of yet another nuclear holocaust struck […]

  ALL AMERICAN:  Wednesday 9PM on CW The ALL AMERICAN of CW’s pilot may or may not be fully representative of the series going forward, since creator and original showrunner April Blair is no longer involved with the production of the show, replaced by writer/producer Nkechi O. Carroll.  (The series is under the overall supervision–as […]

  THE ENEMY WITHIN:  Monday 10PM on NBC NBC’s spy thriller THE ENEMY WITHIN is a variation of The Blacklist, itself a variation of The Silence Of The Lambs, all telling stories about ingenious master villains recruited by the FBI to help track down other fiendish criminals.  But series creator Ken Woodruff’s script (his previous […]

  DOLEMITE IS MY NAME (Netflix – October 4 in theatres/October 25 streaming): Putting aside his strong dramatic turn in Dreamgirls, it’s been an incredible 20 years, dating back to 1999’s Bowfinger, since Eddie Murphy’s work inspired the kind of joy that typified the first two decades of his career, joy that’s been diminished with […]

  PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime (available now via streaming/VOD) PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS is Showtime and John Logan’s not particularly promising attempt to turn his previous hit series into an anthology.  The two shows have little in common, at least initially, beyond the general historical horror genre and Logan’s […]

  THE POWER OF THE DOG (Netflix – theatrical release Nov 17, streaming Dec 1):  Jane Campion’s first feature in a dozen years is a powerhouse that won’t be to all tastes.  It’s a western that sets out to subvert the genre’s conventions, a slow-burn psychological thriller that eventually explodes, and in the end, somewhat […]

  WOMEN TALKING (UA/MGM/Amazon – December 9):  In an insular Mennonite community, the woman have always believed what the men told them, that when they awake to discover evidence of sexual assault and thereafter sometimes pregnancy, those were the result of attacks by evil spirits and ghosts.  When the story of Women Talking begins, they’ve […]

  DIDI (no distrib):  Sean Wang’s endearing memory piece won the US Dramatic Competition Audience Award.  It’s set in 2008 Northern California during the summer before Chris (Izaac Wang) begins high school and his sister Vivian (Shirley Chen) leaves for college in San Diego.  The kids have essentially been raised by Chungsing (Joan Chen) as […]