Movie Reviews and Previews Bridgerton is a romantic, gossipy confection Bridgerton is Shonda Rhimes’ first production for Netflix, and it is a lavish, visually stunning historical romance series. Adapted from Julia Quinn’s series of novels depicting the lives and loves of the copious Bridgerton family in Regency England, the first season of Bridgerton tackles the first book in the By Sarah • Dec 22, 2020 12:57 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Small Axe: Education is a fitting end to the anthology Education is the final installment in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology—which collectively won Best Picture from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association—and like Lovers Rock, it is not based on a specific person, but on a specific event that occurred in the Afro-Caribbean community in London By Sarah • Dec 21, 2020 11:57 am
Movie Reviews and Previews The Mandalorian became small SPOILERS From the beginning of The Mandalorian, when Mando hooked up with Baby Yoda, he was charged with returning the tyke to “his kind”, but “his kind” turned out not to be the mysterious species to which Baby Yoda belongs, but to the Jedi. In and of itself, this is By Sarah • Dec 21, 2020 11:30 am
Best Of 2020 My Favorite Things of 2020: Rom-Coms Movie theaters were closed most of 2020, but this was not a year without movies. There have been many good and a few great movies this year, with more yet to come in the early months of 2021 to qualify for the adjusted awards season schedule. Eventually, I’ll get By Sarah • Dec 18, 2020 12:40 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Finally, Tenet Tenet has finally arrived for on demand home viewing, which means it is finally time to review Tenet! Or maybe I have already reviewed Tenet! Maybe my review of Tenet has drifted back from the future, to materialize at just the right moment—now!—and I can close the loop By Sarah • Dec 18, 2020 10:29 am
Books My Favorite Things of 2020: Piranesi Like many people, I ended up reading more than usual this year. Sleep being especially hard to come by at certain points during the year, I found myself reading well into the night many times. The stand-out book for me this year is actually one of my recent reads, By Sarah • Dec 17, 2020 02:54 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is adapted from August Wilson’s play of the same name, written for the screen by Ruben Santiago-Hudson and directed by George C. Wolfe. It feels very much like a play, with a staginess to the setting, especially early on, and long, unbroken monologues By Sarah • Dec 17, 2020 12:05 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Carey Mulligan in Promising Young Woman Promising Young Woman is a gleaming, glittering cinematic candy hiding a poisonous center, something sweet on the surface with a vicious sting that will ruin your night for sure. Emerald Fennell, in her feature directorial debut, has lovingly crafted a delicious cinematic treat meant to make your stomach turn. The By Sarah • Dec 15, 2020 11:44 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Small Axe: Alex Wheatle Alex Wheatle, the fourth installment of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology, is, like Red, White and Blue before it, a biopic focused on the origin story of an accomplished Black man descended from Caribbean immigrants to the UK. In this case, the story centers on Alex Wheatle, an award- By Sarah • Dec 14, 2020 03:04 pm
TV Updates The Road to Bridgerton The full trailer for Bridgerton, Netflix’s big-budget adaptation of Julia Quinn’s popular series of romance novels, has dropped and it is the lavish, candy-coated confection we need at the end of this horrible year. I am unabashedly enthusiastic about Bridgerton—look at it! JUST LOOK AT By Sarah • Dec 14, 2020 12:45 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Famous People in The Prom Ryan Murphy’s film adaptation of the Broadway musical The Prom is a strange artifact from another time. Though it debuted in 2016 and hit Broadway in 2018, it feels like flotsam from the Obama-era, something from a less contentious, less overtly divisive time when “NYC Broadway liberals” versus By Sarah • Dec 11, 2020 02:13 pm
Maple Leaf Rachel McAdams returns to Marvel and Tatiana Maslany is IN I’ve been covering the info dump from yesterday Disney Investor Day, where they bragged about topping 86 million subscribers in 13 months, and announced a bunch of new theatrical and streaming stuff to roll out over the next few years. As you’ve seen already today there’s so By Sarah • Dec 11, 2020 01:04 pm
EVEN MORE MARVEL It will NEVER stop coming! Marvel will keep making sh-t until they are the ONLY people left in Hollywood to make ANYTHING, EVER! It does kind of feel like that, doesn’t it? All that will survive at the end of the world are cockroaches and Marvel movies. Feast By Sarah • Dec 11, 2020 11:23 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Ms. Marvel is sunny and cute Among the never-ending Marvel news from yesterday is a teaser for Ms. Marvel, the Disney+ series featuring Kamala Khan. We learned a couple months ago that newcomer Iman Vellani will play Kamala, and now we can see snippets of her in action. It isn’t enough to judge the By Sarah • Dec 11, 2020 10:09 am
Business of Hollywood Patty Jenkins gets a Star War Among all the news coming out of the Disney investor day, one big hit is that Patty Jenkins will be directing a Star Wars spin-off titled Rogue Squadron for Lucasfilm, making her the first woman to head up a Star Wars film. She shot an introduction video for it, By Sarah • Dec 11, 2020 09:45 am
TV Updates My Favorite Things of 2020: Television I listened to a lot of podcasts in 2020, but I DID watch a bunch of TV, too. Obviously, we all Tiger King’d in the spring, when quarantining was new, but that’s not a show I revisited, or one that was at all comforting. I will even go By Sarah • Dec 10, 2020 04:29 pm
