For this audience member, it was the day Toronto moved into high gear. MOONLIGHT (A24 – October 21):  Barry Jenkins’s second film, after his little-seen but much-praised Medicine For Melancholy, is a validation of film festival culture and a reminder of the power of film as personal expression.  (Although the source material is a […]

  POWERLESS:  Thursday 8:30PM on NBC – If Nothing Else is On… So far, NBC’s POWERLESS is merely a clever idea for a sitcom.  It’s set on the fringes of the DC superhero universe, in Charm City, where Wayne Security (owned by the unseen Bruce, who of course has things to do in Gotham) exists […]

  FAMOUS IN LOVE:  Tuesday 9PM on Freeform (full season also available via online/VOD) – Change the Channel On the basis of its opening hour, Freeform’s new FAMOUS IN LOVE is pretty woeful stuff.  It’s the latest version of America’s contribution to the fairy tale template, the one that tells of the gleam and oh-so-naughty […]

  Season 4 of THE ORIGINALS had the chance to emerge from the shadow of its departing parent The Vampire Diaries–there was even a 5-year time jump to distance the two shows–but it didn’t really happen.  For most of its length, the season was a variation of the same pattern that Originals has followed since […]

  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, […]

  IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK (Annapurna – November 30):  Barry Jenkins’ follow-up to Moonlight received a rapturous standing ovation at its Toronto premiere, and it’s unquestionably a beautiful piece of filmmaking,  Jenkins reunited with most of his Moonlight creative team, including cinematographer James Laxton and composer Nicholas Britell, and with a higher budget at […]